The Scots Trad Music Awards or Na Trads were founded in 2003 by Simon Thoumire to celebrate Scotland's traditional music in all its forms and create a high profile opportunity to bring the music and music industry into the spotlight of media and public attention. Nominations are made by the public and in 2019 over 100,000 public votes were expected across 18 categories.
Blazin' Fiddles are a contemporary Scottish fiddle band from the Highlands and Islands. They formed in 1998 to showcase Scotland's distinct regional fiddle styles. The band have a number of awards,including;the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards Live Act of the Year,Album of the Year and Folk Band of the Year. Their records are released on their own indie Blazin' Records label. They have been described as "...the Led Zeppelin of the Folk World."
Maeve Mackinnon is a Scottish folk singer. Originally from Glasgow,she performs primarily in Scottish Gaelic,and also in English. She is also one of two Gaelic singers who share the same name.
Lori Watson is a fiddle player and folk singer who performs traditional and contemporary folk music. She is the first doctor of Artistic Research in Scottish Music.
The Paul McKenna Band are a five piece folk musical group from Glasgow,Scotland.
Joy Dunlop is a Scottish broadcaster,singer,step dancer and educator from the village of Connel in Argyll,who now lives in Glasgow,Scotland. Singing predominantly in Scottish Gaelic,she performs folk music,song and dance in a contemporary style rooted in the tradition. She is a weather presenter for BBC Scotland and BBC ALBA and formerly a volunteer radio presenter with Oban FM
Findlay Napier is a Scottish singer songwriter and teaching artist. He was a member of Scottish folk group Back of the Moon and runs music writing courses.
Breabach is a Scottish folk music band formed in 2005. In 2011,they received nominations for ‘Best Group’at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. They won Scottish Folk Band of the Year in 2012 and Live Act of the Year in 2013 at the Scots Trad Music Awards.
Iain Morrison is a Scottish musician and singer-songwriter. He was born on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
Sarah Hayes is a British folk musician and multi-instrumentalist. She is a member of the indie folk band Admiral Fallow and also a solo artist.
Tim Edey is an English multi-instrumentalist and composer who grew up in Broadstairs,Kent and is now based in Perthshire,Scotland. In 2012 he was Musician of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and,with Brendan Power,Best Duo. He was awarded "Musician of the Year" in the 2020 MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards.
Talisk are a Scottish folk band composed of Mohsen Amini,Benedict Morris,and Charlie Galloway. The band rose to prominence after winning the 2015 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award and the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards "Folk Band of the Year" category in 2017.
Songs of Separation was a music project created in the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum to explore through the medium of music ideas of separation. It was organised by double-bass player Jenny Hill and brought together ten female folk musicians from Scotland and England for one week in June 2015 on the Isle of Eigg. The resulting album won the "Best Album" category in the 2017 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
Jenn Butterworth is an acoustic folk guitarist and singer based in Glasgow,Scotland,who was awarded the title "Musician of the Year" at the 2019 Scots Trad Music Awards,and was nominated for the same title at the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. She was a founder member of Kinnaris Quintet,who won the Belhaven Bursary for Innovation in Scottish Music at the 2019 Scots Trad Music Awards.
The BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician competition has run annually since 2001. It exists to encourage young musicians to keep their tradition alive and to provide performance opportunities,tools and advice to help contestants make a career in traditional music. Former winners include Hannah Rarity,Mohsen Amini,Robyn Stapleton,Shona Mooney and Emily Smith.
Sian is a Scottish all-female traditional band who are known for their Gaelic vocal harmonies and celebrating Gaelic songs composed by women. They formed to raise the prominence of work by female Gaelic bards,which might not have received much attention or credit otherwise.
Rachel Newton is a Scottish singer and harpist. As well as playing both acoustic and electric harp she also plays viola,fiddle,piano and harmonium. She performs solo as well as in the bands The Shee,The Furrow Collective and Boreas and was formerly a member of the Emily Portman Trio. She was a member of the Lost Words Spell Songs project and is a co-founder of The Bit Collective,a group campaigning for equality in folk music.
Hannah Rarity is a Scottish singer and songwriter from Dechmont,West Lothian. In 2018,she was the winner of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician award,and her debut album Neath the Gloaming Star was nominated for Album of the Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards in 2019.
Jock Duncan was a Scottish singer from Gelliebrae near New Deer in Aberdeenshire,known for singing many songs and bothy ballads from Aberdeenshire. He had performed at bothy ballad competitions since 1975 and made recordings of his music since 1996. In recognition of his work for furthering Scots singing,Duncan was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2000,Duncan was given a Herald Angel award from the Edinburgh Festival for his long work with ballad singing.
