Fiddle:
Iain Fraser
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Iain Fraser is much in demand as a teacher, workshop leader and performer. In 1990, he took over and expanded the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop and, until recently, was principal fiddle tutor on the Scottish Music degree course at the RSAMD. For fifteen years he ran monthly workshops with Feis Ross in the Dingwall area and has taught at music camps from Wiston to Wellington, performing in places as far afield as Lagos and Lapland. He is most excited by the rhythmic, expressive and emotional possibilities offered by Scottish fiddle music and is as happy playing slow strathspeys as he is improvising around celtic fusion themes. Iain has settled in the Borders and is now Head of Instrumental Music for the local authority. |
Gordon Gunn
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From Wick, Caithness, Gordon Gunn is a respected fiddle tutor, composer and session musician who works with Session A9, Anam and tours with his own band. His compositions have been recorded by many artistes including Session A9 and Phil Cunningham & Aly Bain. As a fiddle and group work tutor, Gordon regularly teaches for Feis Rois and The National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton. He has also taught workshops for Glasgow Fiddle Workshop, Sabhal Mor Ostaig, Edinburgh Youth Gaitherin, Edinburgh Fiddle Festival, Feisean Nan Gaidhael, Newcastle Folk Works, Orkney Trad Music Project and in the USA and west coast of Canada. |
Gillian Frame
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Gillian Frame from the Isle of Arran comes from a family of musicians. In 2001 she won the inaugural Young Scottish Traditional Musician Award. Since then she has been playing fiddle and singing, recording and teaching, and in 2002 graduated from RSAMD with BA (Hons) in Scottish Music. Gillian currently performs with Findlay Napier in Back of the Moon and the Bar Room Mountaineers. During the Celtic Connections festival 2002 Gillian debuted her work "Kinship Theory". Gillian also played in the first "Unusual Suspects" performance put together by Corrina Hewat and Dave Milligan involving over thirty of Scotland's top Traditional Musicians. |
Donald Stewart
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Donald grew up in Edinburgh where he was first introduced to Scots fiddle music through the strathspey and reel society and later through the Scottish fiddle and accordion competition scene. After some success on the competition circuit, at the age of 17 he featured with Aly Bain, Tom Anderson, Angus Grant, Bill Hardie, Alastair Hardie and Hector MacAndrew on the Fiddlers Companion LP which was released in 1980. At Edinburgh University Donald became president of the Crown Folk Club and subsequently formed several successful folk and ceilidh bands playing all over the country. Since moving to London in 1988 he has played in a number of Scottish Country Dance Bands in and around London. Donald currently runs the only dedicated Scottish Fiddle Workshop in London. |
Accordion:
Frank Reid
Frank Reid, born in Glasgow, has been playing Scottish accordion music since he was fifteen. Forming his first band at eighteen he now runs the best known Scottish dance band south of the border, having recorded five albums for the London Highland Club and three on its own label, as well as four recordings for Radio Scotland’s “Take the Floor”. Frank has accompanied Scottish dancers in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Vienna, Prague and Norway. Frank also played at the premiere of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and appeared solo supporting the Glasgow representatives on BBC television’s Come Dancing. |
Gaelic Song:
Kathleen Graham
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Kathleen Graham, immersed in her native Gaelic culture and language from the Isle of Skye, is now based in Glasgow where she graduated from the RSAMD Scottish Music course in 2003. Since graduating Kathleen has gigged and recorded with various artists including lead vocals and Clarsach for septet Brolum making the CD The Fair Face I Never Saw. Not only is Kathleen is in demand as a performing artist she is also heavily involved in teaching voice, clarsach, dance and groupwork to children and adults. For the last couple of years she has taught in hundreds of schools throughout Scotland as part of the Youth Music Initiative Scheme and is regularly involved in other Feiseann. |
Bagpipes:
Allan MacDonald
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Allan MacDonald from Glenuig started piping aged nine, playing in competitions which included twice winning the Inverness Clasp. Taught first by Pipe Major John MacKenzie of Campbeltown and then by Bob Nicol, Ballater and Roddy MacDonald of South Uist, he was at the forefront of introducing alternative styles of playing light music in the 1970s and 80s. He has also explored the differences between modern piobaireachd playing and that of the 18th century. He has also published a music collection, The Moidart Collection, and in 1998 released the highly-acclaimed album Fhuair mi pog with the Gaelic singer Margaret Stewart. In October 2001 Allan released a second album "Colla mo Run". |
Guitar:
Findlay Napier
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Findlay is a graduate of the Royal Scottish
Academy of Music and Drama BA (Scottish Music) course where he studied
Scots Song under Andy Hunter and Alison MacMorland. In the BBC Radio Scotland
Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award 2002 Findlay was one of the
eight finalists following which he came up with the highly acclaimed 'Master
and Apprentice' and 'Young Tradition' concert series. The concerts, held
at Celtic Connections in Glasgow, showcase the best young talent in Scottish
music today. He has taught workshops in guitar and song at festivals and has been a tutor at numerous Feisean, at the Aberdeenshire based Gordon Gaetherin' and at The Sunshine Coast Fiddle Camp in British Colombia, Canada. Also across the Atlantic Findlay performed at the Juno awards in Calgary, Canada with fiddler Gillian Frame and cellist Christine Hanson. |
Jim Hunter
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Jim Hunter, an outstanding guitar and slide-guitar master originally from Edinburgh moved to the North West of Scotland in 1976, where now he dominates the Highlands Blues scene. Having toured with the likes of RunRig, The Waterboys, Wolfstone, The Rankin family, and the Battlefield Band he has recorded eight albums: “Burnt Out In The Snow”, “Waste the Paint”, “Uphill Slide”; “Fingernail Moon”, “The Crack O Noon Club”, live album “Sparks in Flight”, “Turning the Tide”, “Old Dogs for the Hard Road” and. “90 M.P.H.”. He was also responsible for “Songhunter”, a project to find non-professional songwriters across the Highlands to record their material culminating in the album “Spirits of the Land”. |
Step Dance:
Mats Melin
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Mats hails from Stockholm, Sweden. His
dancing career began aged eleven, firstly concentrating on Scottish
Country Dancing. Mats' soon also turned to solo dancing. In 1980 he
joined the Stockholm Caledonian Dance Circle (SCDC), soon running their
solo dance classes. Mats attended the RSCDS Summer School in St. Andrews
where he met the late Mr Bobby Watson of Aberdeen, the Highland Dancer
of world fame, who kept him on the right track and on his toes. This
progressed to private tuition in Aberdeen. Mats has been taught by many
well known dance teachers. |