Brìghde Chaimbeul — NPR Tiny Desk, Washington, 2026

A live session filmed for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, around Scottish musician Brìghde Chaimbeul, a virtuoso of the bellows-blown smallpipes. From the Isle of Skye, steeped in the Gaelic tradition, she offers a solo concert built entirely around this little-known instrument, the gentler and more inward cousin of the great Highland bagpipes. In the stripped-down setting of the Tiny Desk, her performance unfolds hypnotic drones, traditional ornamentation and repetitive motifs on the edge of minimalist music. This filmed live concert illustrates the vitality of a new generation of performers reinventing traditional Celtic music without freezing it. For the folk and world-music enthusiast, this NPR capture is a precious discovery: few artists carry such a singular instrument onto an international stage. A live of hushed intensity, revealing the harmonic richness of a living Scottish heritage, far from folkloric clichés. Her recordings with saxophonist Colin Stetson extended this language further, and the Tiny Desk captures its essence in a single uninterrupted sitting.