📷 Maggie MacInnes – by Vincent O’Brien As some of you might know, my mother Flora MacNeil and I performed often together and nearly all the Gaelic songs I sing and have recorded, I learned from her. She learned them orally, mostly from her mother, grandmother, aunt, and uncle as she grew up in Barra. … Continued

📷 Photo by Somhairle MacDonald My new album and most recent exhibition at An Talla Solais in Ullapool. Interestingly, the previous blog I wrote for the Traditional Music Forum in 2020, also had a timing theme. (A flashback to the sudden luxury of time that Covid restrictions afforded us and how that inevitably led to … Continued

📷 Photos by Jette Jaacks Ashes to Art is my second solo album that was just released in April. Without intending to, the album became a deeply personal reflection of my journey over the past few years. Broadly speaking it conveys a theme of transformation: that which comes from overcoming a season of challenges and … Continued

📷 Photos by ABCassidy Photography Last month I attended my third North Atlantic Song Convention (NASC) – a formal title for what’s a lively and often informal gathering. The event has been running since 2020 and it’s a weekend packed with singers, songs and discussions about unaccompanied traditional singing. This year’s participants came from Scotland, … Continued

📷 Photo above by Cami Lemoine One of my favourite poets, Norman MacCaig, had a unique gift for noticing, capturing and celebrating the beauty of ordinary life. A tree or a frog or a coffee or a landscape or an overheard conversation are all subjects deserving of their own poem, a poem that doesn’t try … Continued

📷 Photo by Alan Donaldson The Button Boxes and Moothies Festival 2025 lit up Aberdeen this November with exactly the kind of warmth, music, and community spirit that makes traditional festivals so special. As someone now in my fourth year studying Performance in Traditional Music, specialising in the concertina, I’m used to lively sessions and … Continued

📷 Photo by Somhairle MacDonald Hi, I’m Kim Richards, and I live and work in the beautiful West Coast village of Ullapool. When people ask what I do, it takes me a moment to decide what to say and what role to prioritise as this changes regularly. In no particular order, I’m a secondary school … Continued

📷 Sheila Sapkota by Louis DeCarlo A rambling reflection on a success story which continues to move forward. I am a community musician and now, in my sixth decade of life, look back on the various musical meanderings I have encountered along the way. I have been so lucky to meet some amazing musicians and … Continued

I really love the strathspey, The Miller of Drone, and have been playing it a lot this past 6 months, getting to appreciate its personality and foibles. It is such a lyrical tune, and responds delightfully to either being driven hard, or gently coaxed. I got to wondering where the tune hailed from. Where is … Continued

📷 Photo by Peter McNally I first came across the incredible sound of Gaelic psalm singing back in 2002 when I was living in London and studying music at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). As part of my degree, I had the opportunity to do some work experience and spent a day … Continued