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

The tour features the finalists of this year's BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award - won by Gaelic singer James Graham (pictured) - and is being run for the first time by the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland.

The tour will include Shetland, Inverness, Keith, Stonehaven, Peebles, Lochinver and Strachur.

The musicians are: 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) and winner James Graham from Lochinver (Gaelic song). They will be joined by last year's award winner, guitarist and fiddler Anna Massie, from Fortrose, who is making her mark at home and internationally as a dazzling string player. The lineup will be completed by pianist Hamish Napier from Strathspey.

The Award takes place each year at Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow and is, after four years, an established and respected showcase for young performers representing the breadth of Scotland's instrumental and vocal traditions.

Biographical notes:

SHONA DONALDSON grew up surrounded by music and dancing in her family. She took up the fiddle when she was eight and began singing after hearing the great bothy ballad singers Jock Duncan and Geordie Murison. Shona joined the Strathspey Fiddlers, a group of young fiddlers, pipers and dancers from the north-east, recording a CD and appearing around Britain and abroad. Shona studied at the Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton, then the BA Scottish Music degree course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and was awarded the Stevenson Scholarship.

As well as performing, Shona has conducted bothy ballad workshops for the National Trust of Scotland, teaching primary school children traditional singing and underlining the importance of keeping our traditions alive. This year Shona has appeared at Livingston Singers Festival - as the TMSA young singer of merit - Stonehaven, Auchtermuchty and Whitby.

JAMES GRAHAM started singing at family ceilidhs at the age of seven and went on to study Gaelic song at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He has performed in Europe and the USA and hopes to continue his studies at Sabhal Mor Ostaig in Skye. Since winning the Young Traditional Musician Award in January, James has been working with a new band, with Donal Brown on whistles and flute and James Ross on piano. This summer they performed at Winnipeg, Vanvouver and Mission Folk Festivals in Canada. Since then James has been working on his debut album for Footstompin Records, as part of his award prize, which is produced by Mary Ann Kennedy and will be available from around September.

ANNA MASSIE is the 2003 winner of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award. She began playing as a teenager with her father's ceilidh band and has many musical achievements to her credit, together with extensive experience of both traditional and classical music. Anna now divides her talents between fiddle, mandolin and guitar and is studying for a degree in Applied Music at the University of Strathclyde. Anna played at Celtic Colours in Cape Breton as her award prize last year and returns there this year. Other festival appearances for Anna and her band this year include Celtic Connections, the Hebridean Celtic Festival, Orkney and Shetland, Goderich in Canada and Tønder in Denmark. Her album Glad Company is available on Footstompin Records.

ROSIE MORTON graduated from the BA Scottish Music degree course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2002 and was featured in last year's Young Tradition Concert series at Celtic Connections. She has performed as a member of the Scottish Harp Quartet and currently performs with several bands, including Sonsie Music, specialising in shows for children and Busk Till Dawn. While in Glasgow Rosie developed a passion for Scots and Gaelic song and is looking forward to exploring song writing and composition.

HAMISH NAPIER was steeped in traditional music by his family from an early age. He received tuition in piano, song, flute and whistle at the renowned music department at Grantown Grammar School and his local Gaelic Arts Festival Feis Spe. Hamish has played piano, flutes or sung in a variety of bands, appearing at Eden Court Theatre, the Millennium Dome and the Highland Festival and touring extensively abroad. Perhaps better known as the pianist and singer with young Scottish band Back of the Moon (winners of the Best Newcomer Artist/Band at the 2003 Scots Trad Awards, and the Lorient Interceltic Festival band competiton 2003) Hamish is also increasingly recognised for his flute and whistle playing.

SARAH NAYLOR is entering her honours year in Applied Music at the University of Strathclyde. This year she won the Highlands and Islands Fiddle Masters Competition - after being runner up last year - and is the other half of a duo with guitarist Jenn Butterworth, who this year won a Celtic Connections Danny Kyle Award. Sarah has a love of the west coast fiddle style but also enjoys composing music with a more contemporary feel.

TOM ORR has been playing accordion since he was seven. He has already performed widely at home and abroad, with trips to the European Accordion Festival in Prague and Shetland's Up Helly Aa festivities, as well as concerts in France, Belgium and Ireland. Tom was a pupil of Keith Dickson of Dolphinston and joined his band, Koda, playing at Wembley, Edinburgh’s Usher Hall and Churchill Theatre and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and T In The Park. Tom has recently fronted his own band on BBC Radio Scotland’s Take The Floor and Reel Blend and they’ve performed around Britain. This year Tom won the Open Accordion Section at the Musselburgh Meeting. The TMSA Young Trad Tour in September will see him celebrate his 18th birthday in Stonehaven!

JENNA REID is an award winning former pupil of renowned Shetland fiddle teachers Tom Anderson and Willie Hunter. She is a BA Scottish Music graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and plays with the Shetland band Filska and the Scottish band Dochas. She has also toured with Deaf Shepherd, Fiddlers Bid, John Raes Celtic Feet, Kevin Mackenzie’s Vital Signs and recently guested with the legendary Boys of the Lough. As well as performing, Jenna enjoys teaching and has been a guest tutor on the BA Scottish Music course at the RSAMD.

Reviews:

The Herald *****
With recent achievements as young as 12, such as the Traditional Music School of Excellence in Plockton's latest CD and the massed participation of school pupils in Celtic Connections' opening concert, Harvest, contestants in the Young Traditional Musician of the Year's catchment age group 16-25 are beginning to look like veterans. It is little surprise then that this year's final featured one of the strongest fields yet, making the judges' job of choosing a winner no enviable task. All six contestants were experienced performers with their own musical personalities, all well capable of putting their own interpretations into tunes and songs and each contributing to the entertainment value of an evening that each year becomes increasingly more nerve-wracking for the audience than it appears to be for the tremendously assured and often jocularly nonchalant performers. The six represented a wide geographical spread, with James Graham from Lochinver becoming the first male - and first Gael - winner through his commanding performance of Gaelic song beginning with a beautiful rendering of Murdo MacFarlane's anthem Canan Nan Gaidheal. Shetlander Jenna Reid had set a cracking pace with her explosive fiddle playing. Tom Orr, the self-styled farmer's boy from Lanark displayed brilliantly intricate finger work on the accordion as well as much humour. Skye-born Sarah Naylor entertained with Gaelic song and a fiddle style that ran a gamut from gentle slow air to rough-hewn reel. Edinburgh clarsach player Rosie Morton combined a refined technique with mirthful Scots song, and Shona Donaldson's north-east origins in Huntly shone through in her excellent fiddle playing and ballad singing.

- Rob Adams

The Scotsman ****
GAELIC singer James Graham from Lochinver beat off strong competition to become the first male Young Scots Traditional Musician of the Year, with a set of impeccably performed songs. The six finalists delivered a richly entertaining concert, and each provided yet more evidence of the remarkable growth in standards in traditional music in recent years. Three of the contenders were fiddle players who also sang, and each brought a distinctive stylistic approach to proceedings. Jenna Reid comes out of the Shetland tradition, Sarah Naylor is a West Coast stylist from Skye, and Shona Donaldson of Huntly belongs to the north-east tradition. Each displayed the expected technical prowess, but also a genuine musicality and expressiveness.

That was equally true of the other contestants: accordion player Tom Orr from Lanark, clarsach player and singer Rosie Morton from Edinburgh, and the eventual winner. Their repertoires revealed considerable imagination in putting together sets that would show off the range of their gifts, including some self-composed material. It all added up to a headache for the five judges.

- Kenny Mathieson

© Photographs supplied with kind permission from BBC Radio Scotland


TMSA Young Trad Tour 2004

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