Adult Fèis (May)

Amy is at the forefront of contemporary Scottish Fiddle playing as a performer, teacher and composer. Her style has developed over the years through playing with musicians not just at home but in places such as Ireland, Norway, Canada & India. This results in an assured sound firmly rooted in Scotland but enhanced by an increasingly broad wealth of musical experience.

From Perthshire, Patsy Reid is a Scottish musician, composer and teacher. Since stepping back from super-folk-group, Breabach in 2011, Patsy has been in constant demand as a session player and arranger, animating others’ projects with her unique blend of fiddle and violin playing. A one-woman string quartet, Patsy has contributed violin, viola and cello to recordings by the likes of Zakir Hussain, Donald Shaw, Flook, Kathryn Tickell, and Duncan Chisholm, whilst on stage, she can be found performing with the who’s who of the Scottish folk scene, including Julie Fowlis, Donald Shaw, Ross Ainslie & Ali Hutton and Hamish Napier.

Gordon Gunn has been described as “one of the most exciting and innovative fiddle players of the times. Born & brought up in Wick, Caithness, Gordon was taught by the highly respected violin teacher Margaret Henderson who taught many pupils in the north of Scotland. Gordon is also a founding member of Scottish group Session A9 who were voted best live act at the 2012 Trad Awards. Whilst working with Session A9, Gordon also tours with Session A9’s Brian McAlpine on keyboards and include a variety of musicians including Marc Clement and Phil Anderson on guitar and vocals.

Louise Mackenzie is from Nigg in Easter Ross and as a youngster, was taught by three of Scotland’s most respected and treasured Tradition bearers; Aonghas Grant, Alasdair Fraser and the late Dr Tom Anderson. She was greatly inspired and influenced by her mentors and inherited a love for both teaching and composing.  As well as tutoring for Fèis Rois she has been involved with various Fèisean for over 35 years.  She was also a full-time Strings Instructor in East Sutherland for 15 years.  In 2020, Louise was nominated as Tutor of the Year in the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards.

Hailing from the west of Glasgow, Roo Geddes has bolstered his upbringing in traditional music with studies in Jazz and Classical music. Playing his great, great grandad’s fiddle, his music has taken him around the world and he loves sharing these perspectives through teaching.

Deirdre Morrison has performed worldwide on tour, TV, and radio and was a member of Martyn Bennett’s band Cuillin. She has contributed to numerous albums as a musician and produced Gillebride MacMillan’s album Air Forladh, which was shortlisted for Album of the Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards. Deirdre has extensive teaching experience and founded the fiddle group The Flying Fiddles while living in Uist. Her work continues to support and promote Scottish music through performance, recording and education.

Alison Carlyle is an experienced teacher and performer who has taught for Scots Music Group, Ceòlas and Fèis Rois. The workshop will introduce the first steps for dancing to strathspeys and reels, and build these up into improvising to music, exploring the creativity and fun of step dance. Scottish stepdance is a cousin of Irish dance and tapdance. She has been teaching and performing for over 20 years, sharing her traditional and creative dance.

Alice Allen grew up in Banchory, Aberdeenshire and is now based in rural Stirlingshire. She was formerly young artist with the Scottish Ensemble and has performed live on BBC Radio 3 and Radio Scotland. Alice has recorded with many leading folk artists including former BBC young traditional musician of the year Robyn Stapleton.

Alice grew up immersed in the North East fiddle tradition and each summer attended Natalie Haas’ Scottish music camps on the Isle of Skye. Her playing style is deeply rooted in both the Scottish music tradition and the classical music tradition and she is tutor of Scottish traditional cello at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

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Karen Tweed is an internationally respected musician, composer and tutor now living in Orkney, where she has found her creative home. Multi-faceted, her graphic art too has been used on many CD covers, posters and music publications.

Working with singer-songwriter Roger Wilson, Karen began her professional musical touring career in 1987, left teaching Art and began collaborating with (amongst others) Kathryn Tickell, The Poozies, SWÅP, Colum Sands, Timo Alakotila and top jazz accordionist Karen Street. She has appeared on over 70 CDs, 3 accordion publications/manuals and now has  music and art publications of her own.

She is much in demand as an inspirational tutor internationally both on accordion and as an instrumental arranger at summer schools, regularly teaching at Newcastle University, Sibelius Academy and the World Academy of Music and Dance at Limerick University. She is known for being wacky, fun and a confidence-lifter.

John is one of the great characters of the Scottish music scene and one of the music’s most dedicated advocates through his work as a musician, performer, bandleader, television producer, accordion teacher and competition adjudicator.

Neil Sutcliffe is an accordionist and folksinger from Stirling, Scotland. He performs as a soloist and in several different ensembles and bands. His roots are in the traditional music scene in Scotland, coming from a family of musicians and growing up surrounded by folksongs, ballads, pipe tunes, and ceilidh dancing.

Neil studied Classical Accordion with Djordje Gajic at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, graduating with a First Class BMus (Honours) degree in Performance, and receiving several awards for his academic work and research into the history and contemporary accordion scene in Scotland. As a classical musician, he focuses on researching, performing and promoting neglected Scottish composers and music relating to Scottish history, language and place. He is passionate about bringing this music to new audiences, and making classical music accessible and engaging to all. Neil regularly performs together with Roo Geddes at festivals, gigs, and in community music settings.

James Ross is a Scottish pianist, composer and educator. He graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama before going on to complete an MA in Traditional Music Performance at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. Projects have included a commission from Highland music tuition project Fèis Rois, in partnership with Drake Music Scotland, involving school children with learning disabilities performing alongside professional musicians. James regularly works with Irish singer Michelle Burke and is musical director for her acclaimed show Step into my Parlour.

Corrina Dawn is a singer, harpist and composer, and widely recognised as one of Scotland’s most unique and innovative musicians. Born in Edinburgh and raised in the Scottish Highlands, her huge range of musical influences has contributed greatly to her very individual take on traditional music.

The essence of Corrina’s music lies in her passion for Scottish traditional music and song, but what sets it apart is her effortless blending of other musical genres. Her love of folk, jazz, contemporary classical and pop music has in no small part influenced Corrina’s style of performing and composing over the years – a style shaped by a fascination with experimental music and improvisation, alongside a deep respect for the more formal architecture of music. She performs with a reverence for tradition and a dedication to innovation.

Patsy Seddon is one of Scotland’s favourite and most innovative celtic harp players.

A versatile and experienced musician, who sings in Gaelic, English and Scots, and also plays the Scottish fiddle in a variety of settings.

Patsy regularly performs with bands and solo, in concerts and at festivals. She is in great demand as a teacher of harp and of singing, in schools, on University courses, in workshops and for private pupils.

Findlay Napier is an award-winning Scottish singer, songwriter and teaching artist. He has been touring and releasing music since the early noughties. First with the groundbreaking trad folk band Back of the Moon, then with Nu-Folk pioneers Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers and most recently as a solo act working under the guidance of legendary songwriter Boo Hewerdine. His breakthrough solo album, VIP: Very Interesting Persons, produced by Boo Hewerdine, was number 2 in the Telegraph’s top folk albums. He followed it with 2017’s “Glasgow”, described by the Scotsman as “a paean to his adopted home town” which led to a number of high profile gigs including a couple of seasons as the opening act on Eddi Reader’s UK tour. In 2021 he released It Is What It Is, a collaboration album in all but name with producer and multi-instrumentalist Angus Lyon which Folk Radio UK called, ”A captivating, indispensable work; “it is what it is” and what it is, is magnificent.”

Equally at home as accompanist or melody player, Anna Massie is one of Scotland’s foremost guitarists. As well as being a skilled multi-instrumentalist renowned for her work with Blazin’ Fiddles and RANT, she also presents BBC Radio Scotland’s award-winning flagship trad music programme, Travelling Folk. Three-time nominee for Best Instrumentalist at the Scots Trad Music Awards, 2021 winner of the Trad Music in the Media award for her Black Isle Correspondent work and 2022 Producer of the Year award, Anna is a highly talented musician, presenter and producer.

Nigel Gatherer has been involved in the traditional music of Scotland for decades as a collector, a player and a teacher. In 1985 he published his first book, Songs and Ballads of Dundee. He has since published dozens more, including a popular set of session tune books. Nigel’s web site attracts people from all over the world and contains hundreds of tunes and historical information about Scottish folk music.

Since starting to teach traditional music in 1996, Nigel has become a popular tutor around Scotland and beyond, regularly being invited to conduct workshops at festivals and summer schools. In 2009 he was nominated as Tutor of the Year in the Scots Trad Music Awards, and in 2017 inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame.

Fred Morrison was born and raised near Glasgow, but it’s the celebrated Gaelic piping tradition of his father’s native South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, that forms the bedrock of his intensely expressive, uniquely adventurous style. Although his first-love instrument remains the great Highland bagpipes, over the years his mastery has expanded to encompass whistles, Scottish small pipes, or reel pipes – Morrison being a pivotal populariser of this once-rare variety – and Irish uilleann pipes. He was also one of the first Scottish artists to forge dynamic links with his Celtic cousins in Brittany and north-west Spain, adding further to his repertoire of influences and tunes, and has long been renowned as an outstanding tune composer.

Kim is an artist, freelance designer/illustrator, musician and art teacher from Ullapool. She released her album, Leaves that Fly, in 2018. She runs weekly music sessions with Mairearad Green, and regularly plays gigs and Ceilidhs with a variety of other musicians, including The Highland Ceilidh Band. She is also a regular Fèis Rois YMI tutor.

Conal McDonagh is a piper from Poolewe in Wester Ross. Influenced by both his Scottish upbringing and Irish heritage, Conal plays the Irish Uilleann pipes as well as the Scottish Highland and Border pipes, whistles and flute.

Conal developed his music through Fèis Rois tuition weeks, studied at the National Centre for Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton and graduated with First Class Honours from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

A winner of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award as part of the Mischa MacPherson Trio, Conal continues to work with both new and established artists, including Breabach, Duncan Chisholm, Cara Dillon and The Paul McKenna Band and also writes and performs with innovative folk/electronica band Inyal.

Calum Stewart is an award winning Uilleann Piper, flautist and composer.

Calum’s distinct musical voice – expressed through the rich, powerful tones of the Wooden Flute, and the wild, shimmering sound of the Irish Uilleann Pipes, has been developed through collaborations within the Scottish and Irish traditions.

His most recent albums; True North (2023) and Tales from the North (2017) bring together traditional melodies and lyrical compositions, inspired by the landscape and heritage of Calum’s native North of Scotland.

Michelle is an acclaimed singer from rural East Cork, Ireland. Having spent two years as the lead singer with Irish American super group, Cherish the Ladies, Michelle is fast gaining a reputation as a solo artist. She is an impressive interpreter of songs with a timelessly expressive, exquisitely nuanced voice.

Widely regarded as “Scotland’s foremost folklorist” she is known to “wear her scholarship lightly,” lecturing, singing and storytelling on both sides of the Atlantic. Scottish Arts critic Judy Moir wrote “It’s rare to witness such a charismatic and fascinating raconteur.”

Margaret attributes her interest in traditional culture to her upbringing in Skye, Lewis and Shetland, with Gaelic and Scots storytellers, singers and musicians.  As a student in Glasgow during the burgeoning Folk-scene of the Sixties, she was inspired to study Folklore in Newfoundland where she recorded tradition-bearers whose people left Scotland in the 1830s. 

Inducted into the Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2014 in recognition of her performances across the performing arts, Margaret is also known for collaborations with her son, Martyn Bennett (1971–2005).  Commenting on her lifelong dedication to Scotland’s traditional culture, the late Hamish Henderson wrote: “There can be few scholars on either side of the Atlantic who succeed in combining such a wide range of skills as Margaret Bennett.  A folksinger of great sensitivity and versatility, she is undoubtedly one of the major figures of the modern Scottish Revival… Margaret embodies all that is best of the spirit of Scotland.”

Margaret Stewart is an award winning Gaelic singer from the Isle of Lewis. She has three studio albums to her name and a number of collaborative recordings. A native Gael and Gaelic speaker, born and brought up in the Outer Hebrides, Margaret has a great passion for the songs and culture of her homeland. As well as her musical performances, in collaboration with the some of the cream of Highland and Irish musicians, she is also in demand as a mentor, teacher and lecturer on various themes of Gaelic song and related history.

Margaret has amassed an impressive repertoire of songs, over the years, and has recorded two seminal albums with pipers Allan and Iain MacDonald  (Fhuair mi Pog and Colla Mo Rùn) and a solo album (Togaidh mi mo Sheòlta), on the Greentrax label.  She continues to develop performances and recording collaborations with some of Gaeldom’s finest musicians and regularly performs with harp virtuoso Ingrid Henderson.

Scots Singer of the Year 2022 and 2024, Beth Malcolm has been surrounded by Scottish folk music from a very young age. Beth was only four years old when she first took to the stage at Kirriemuir Folk Festival to screch out ‘Ally Bally Bee’, and she has been performing ever since.

A songwriter, piano player and singer of stories, Beth has established herself as one of Scotland’s most sought-after young artists. Beth was still early in her career when she became an award-winning songwriter:  winning Edinburgh Folk Club’s yearly songwriting competition with her song ‘Choose My Company’ in her teens. A few years later, her song ‘Leavin’ Loch Leven’ won a national songwriting competition.

While she studied History in Glasgow, and then spent two years teaching bairns at a High School outside Edinburgh, she took the leap to pursue her music full-time in 2022. Beth released her debut album ‘Kissed and Cried’ shortly after, which received a 5***** review in The Scotsman: “Beth Malcolm brings passionate commitment to whatever she sings… the album bursts with warmth. Judging by this debut, a glowing future beckons.”

Dave Martin is an experienced and accomplished Bodhran player, musician, sound designer and educator of 30 years and has worked and performed nationally and internationally with a number of groups, solo artists, dance companies, theatre companies, art organizations and film companies. He has played on over 20 albums.

Dave regularly teaches Bodhran with Feis Nan Gael, Feis Rois and Feis Spe all around Scotland and is seen by many as one of the top Bodhran players in the country and is currently playing with Bruce MacGregor and MacGregor’s Gathering

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