As a 7-year-old, Heidi Joosten learned to play the Celtic harp, with “The Skye Boat Song” among her first tunes.
Decades later, she’s conducting the orchestra for the traveling show “Outlander in Concert: Echoes Through the Highlands,” which features “The Skye Boat Song.” The event comes to the Mesa Arts Center on Sunday, Nov. 15, and to the Fox Tucson Theatre on Friday, Nov. 20.
The concert tour pairs live musicians and vocalists with cinematic visuals from all eight seasons, projected on a large screen. Traditional instruments, including bagpipes, fiddles, and the hurdy-gurdy, join the orchestra to recreate the sounds that have become inseparable from the series. A hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces a sound using a hand-cranked, rosined wheel that rubs against the strings, functioning like a mechanical violin.
Based on the bestselling novels by Scottsdale resident Diana Gabaldon, “Outlander” recently ended its eight-season run after more than a decade on television. Audiences watched the romantic time-travel drama about Claire and Jamie Fraser.
The score by Emmy Award-winning composer Bear McCreary blended traditional Celtic influences with sweeping orchestral arr...