Tàlaidhean Ura: The Lullaby Project

Tàlaidhean Ura: The Lullaby Project, in collaboration with New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall’s Weill Institute is a heart-warming project which encourages local parents & care-givers who are caring for babies and toddlers to explore song-writing and come up with their own lullabies with support from professional local musicians during a series of free workshops.

Over the course of 12 weeks, the group meets weekly for a couple hours to explore music and creative writing. Folk are welcome to bring their little ones, who can play in the soft play area whilst they get involved with our team of teaching artists. No musical experience is necessary and our team are on hand to help you write your very own lullaby! At the end of the project you will have the opportunity to record the lullaby.

The Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute pioneered the concept of The Lullaby Project in New York, pairing pregnant women and new mothers and fathers with professional artists to write and sing personal lullabies for their babies, supporting maternal health, aiding childhood development, and strengthening the bond between parent and child. Extending around the world, the Lullaby Project now enables partner organisations to support families in their own communities.

Thanks to support from Spirit of 2012, we first ran the project in 2019/2020 and had an incredible year working in-person pre-pandemic and online to deliver four projects in Alness, Dingwall, Gairloch and Inverness. The results of these initial sessions were 22 new lullabies in Gaelic, English, Arabic and Portuguese and some of these beautiful lullabies can be listened to here. One of the lullabies, Bà Bà written by Kathelle Macleod for her son, Robert, was featured as part of Carnegie Hall’s annual Lullaby Project celebration concert in 2021, amongst other wonderful lullabies from around the globe. The first run of the project also provided work for 9 local freelance musicians. We ran the second instalment, thanks to funding from the Creative Scotland Youth Music Initiative Access to Music Making fund, throughout 2022 – 2024.

In 2025, Fèis Rois was awarded Multi Year Funding from Creative Scotland, which supported another cohort of new parents to participate in the Lullaby Project. c

We are delighted to have secured funding from the Scottish Government’s Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults, which is managed by the Highland Third Sector Interface, to continue our Lullaby Project in Dingwall in 2026 and 2027.

For more information about the Lullaby Project, please contact Marisa, marisa.astill-brown@feisrois.org.