TMSA Young Trad Tour 2004

The Tour
The Musicians
Other Events

The Tour

The TMSA Young Trad Tour 2004 was a showcase for some of Scotland's most talented musicians and turned out to be one of the musical highlights of the year.

The programme featured the finalists of this year's BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award - won by Gaelic singer James Graham - and was run for the first time by the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland.

The tour took in Shetland, Inverness, Keith, Stonehaven, Peebles, Lochinver and Strachur.  It received substantial support from the Scottish Arts Council and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

The Musicians

The musicians were:

• Shona Donaldson from Huntly (voice and fiddle)
• Rosie Morton from Edinburgh (clarsach, voice)
• Sarah Naylor from Skye (fiddle)
• Tom Orr from Lanark (accordion)
• Jenna Reid from Shetland (fiddle, voice)
• Winner James Graham from Lochinver (Gaelic song)

They were joined by last year's award winner, guitarist and fiddler Anna Massie, who is making her mark at home and internationally as a dazzling string player. The line-up was completed by pianist Hamish Napier from Strathspey.

Other Events

With capacity audiences at nearly all of the venues, the extremely successful tour was combined with a series of cultural events at each location for the benefit of the young musicians involved. These events included:

• workshops with local schools in Shetland
• a morning with Friends of Highland Music in Inverness
• a discussion about song collecting with Geordie Murison in Stonehaven.

In Peebles there was an excellent morning of talks from the likes of:

• Willie Beattie (a long time exponent of the border ballad)
• Fred Freeman (on border history and music)
• Lori Watson (on border fiddle music)
• Matt Seattle (on the border piping tradition)
• Karin Ingram (on the box and fiddle scene and Scottish traditions of dance in the borders)

The tour finished on a high note with the musicians wowing capacity audiences once again at Lochinver and Strachur.

For more information on the Young Trad Tour 2004, or the work of the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland, have a look at the TMSA website.