Lori Watson | |
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 Watson in 2008 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Scottish Borders |
| Genres | Scottish folk music, traditional, celtic |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, instrumentalist, researcher, teacher |
| Instrument(s) | Fiddle, voice |
| Years active | 2003 – present |
| Labels | ISLE Music Scotland |
| Website | loriwatson |
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.
Watson grew up in the Scottish Borders where she was a founder member of The Small Hall Band and played in the Clarty Cloot Ceilidh Band. She studied Scottish music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and graduated in 2003. She completed a PhD in Contemporary Innovation and Traditional Music in Scotland. She performs traditional, contemporary and original folk music and sings in Scots and English.
Watson is from a musical Scots/Irish family. Her great-grandfather Peter Augustus Meechan was a popular fiddle player in Glasgow, her grandfather Alexander Watson played accordion and everyone in the family sang. Today, her father sings and plays guitar, bouzouki and mandolin, and her mother sings and plays bodhran. Their small, independent record label, ISLE Music Scotland, owned and run by the family, issued the Borders Young Fiddles CD, a landmark in Scottish / Borders fiddle music, and Watson's debut in 2006, :Three. Watson's brother Innes Watson, graduated from the RSAMD in 2006 and is building a career as a full-time musician.
Lori Watson completed doctoral studies at the RCS in Glasgow and St Andrews University in 2013. She investigated innovation and beyond-tune composition by traditional musicians in Scotland including a substantial folio of new and experimental musical works. Her supervisors were Dr. Stephen Broad, Dr. Liz Doherty, Dr. Stuart Eydmann and Prof. Raymond MacDonald. [1]
This concert featuring the work and life of James Hogg in music, song, poetry and monologue was co-written with Innes Watson and John Nicol, and was performed and recorded live at Both Sides of the Tweed music festival in Selkirk, 2005.
Watson wrote the music for this devised theatrical production at the Aberdeen International Arts Festival in 2016. The project was produced by Youth Music Theatre UK. Blending Scottish and Norwegian musical influences following the journey of 'Hag' to the heart of the Corryvreckan maelstrom, a powerful place where the essences of Scotland and Norway meet. [2]
Watson was a lecturer and examiner at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) including Contemporary Studies, Honours Projects, Scots Song and Principal Study Song Group. She leads the Tolbooth Traditional Music Project for young people [3] and teaches workshops at folk festivals like the now-defunct Border Gaitherin [4] and the Scots Fiddle Festival. [5] She was a Senior Tutor at Glasgow Fiddle Workshop [6] for 10 years[ timeframe? ] and taught fiddle on the Folk and Traditional Music degree at Newcastle University for six years.[ citation needed ] She is currently[ timeframe? ] a lecturer in Scottish Ethnology at the University of Edinburgh. [7]
Scotland is internationally known for its traditional music, which remained vibrant throughout the 20th century and into the 21st when many traditional forms worldwide lost popularity to pop music. Despite emigration and a well-developed connection to music imported from the rest of Europe and the United States, the music of Scotland has kept many of its traditional aspects and has influenced many other forms of music.
Scottish folk music is a genre of folk music that uses forms that are identified as part of the Scottish musical tradition. There is evidence that there was a flourishing culture of popular music in Scotland during the late Middle Ages, but the only song with a melody to survive from this period is the "Pleugh Song". After the Reformation, the secular popular tradition of music continued, despite attempts by the Kirk, particularly in the Lowlands, to suppress dancing and events like penny weddings. The first clear reference to the use of the Highland bagpipes mentions their use at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547. The Highlands in the early seventeenth century saw the development of piping families including the MacCrimmons, MacArthurs, MacGregors and the Mackays of Gairloch. There is also evidence of adoption of the fiddle in the Highlands. Well-known musicians included the fiddler Pattie Birnie and the piper Habbie Simpson. This tradition continued into the nineteenth century, with major figures such as the fiddlers Niel and his son Nathaniel Gow. There is evidence of ballads from this period. Some may date back to the late Medieval era and deal with events and people that can be traced back as far as the thirteenth century. They remained an oral tradition until they were collected as folk songs in the eighteenth century.
Battlefield Band were a Scottish traditional music group. Founded in Glasgow in 1969, they have released over 30 albums and undergone many changes of lineup. As of 2010, none of the original founders remain in the band.
The Clutha were a traditional Scottish band hailing from Glasgow, that released a small number of albums in the 1970s. The line-up on the Clutha's first album, Scotia (1971), was John Eaglesham, Erlend Voy, Calum Allan (fiddle), Ronnie Alexander and Gordeanna McCulloch (vocals). The same band members are credited on their 1974 album, Scots Ballads Songs & Dance Tunes. By the time of their 1977 release, The Bonnie Mill Dams, Jimmy Anderson had joined the group on chamber pipes and bagpipes, and Eaglesham had left the group.
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.
Malinky is a Scottish folk band specialising in Scots song, formed in autumn 1998.
Back of the Moon was a Scottish musical group from the Isle of Arran which played both new and Scottish traditional tunes and songs cast in modern sounding arrangements. Since forming in 2000, the band had toured annually throughout the UK, Canada, United States and eight different European Countries. Back of the Moon created an acoustic sound through a front line of Scottish border pipes and fiddle, a pairing of low whistle and flute, and their guitar/piano rhythm combo. They were at times augmented by bodhran and Cape Breton Stepdancing, and three-part vocal harmonies in their Scottish songs in which each singer took the lead.
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.
Border Fiddles perform traditional and contemporary music from their native Scottish Borders. Formerly known as Borders Young Fiddles. They released an album on ISLE Music Scotland in 2004 and have performed across the UK and Ireland.
Bodega was a Scottish band based in Glasgow, formed in March 2005. Its members met while they were studying together at the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton, Scotland, from which they all graduated. The group was originally called Fiddle Dee Fiddle Dum. They disbanded at the end of 2011, citing the changing musical trajectories of the band's principal founding members.
Capercaillie is a Scottish folk band, founded in 1984 by Donald Shaw and led by Karen Matheson, and which performs traditional Gaelic and contemporary songs in English. The group adapts traditional Gaelic music and traditional lyrics with modern production techniques and instruments such as electric guitar and bass guitar, though rarely synthesizers or drum machines. Capercaillie demonstrate "astonishing musical dexterity" and feature "the peerless voice of co-founder Karen Matheson. Universally recognised as one of the finest Gaelic singers alive today".
Chris Stout is a Scottish fiddle/violin player from Shetland, now based in Glasgow. Stout grew up in Fair Isle and lived there until 8 years of age before moving to Sandwick on the Shetland Mainland, then on to Glasgow in the 1990s.
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.
Mairi Campbell is a Scottish folk singer and musician. Campbell's songs and music have a rooted and powerful quality that range from the everyday to the universal, both in sound and subject matter.
Emily Smith is a Scottish folk singer from Dumfries and Galloway. She went to school at Wallace Hall and has a degree in Scottish music from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
Skipinnish is a traditional Scottish band from the Gàidhealtachd, singing primarily in English. Both the band and brand Skipinnish was created by Angus MacPhail and Andrew Stevenson in 1999 who were both studying at the time at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow.
Jenna Reid is a Scottish fiddle player who has been described as "...the finest fiddler in Scotland of her generation." She was born and brought up in the village of Quarff, in the Shetland Islands of Scotland and found a fiddle in her grandmother's attic when she was nine years old and started to play it. She was taught by Tom Anderson and Willie Hunter and also studied the classical piano. She graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Scottish traditional music where she also sang and played the piano accordion and the piano.
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.
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.
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