Calum Martin

Precentor in the Free Church of Scotland on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, and a bearer of Gaelic psalm singing. The precentor gives out the line and the congregation answers unaccompanied, each voice finding its own way through the tune, so that the sound comes out heterophonic without anyone having arranged it.

What this is should be said plainly: Reformed, Presbyterian congregational worship, not mysticism in the narrow sense and not a concert practice that happens to be held in a church. What it sounds like is another matter, and that is why it belongs here. Martin carries the tradition and speaks for it rather than performing it.

He set up the Salm project to record the singing while it is still sung, three volumes so far, and made Salm and Soul with a gospel choir at Celtic Connections. With the composer Craig Armstrong he made The Edge of the Sea (2020), using choirs drawn from congregations on Lewis and Harris. He teaches Gaelic psalm singing in workshops.