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The Scottish Christmas Songbook

MEET THE BAND

The Scottish Christmas Songbook is built on collaboration ... a gathering of exceptional musicians whose shared love of song and performance (and Christmas!) creates something greater than the sum of its parts.

Eddi Reader

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Eddi Reader grew up in Glasgow and Irvine, Scotland and it was in those towns that she learned to use music as a vehicle for communicating with others through busking and performing at the local folk clubs.  In the early 1980s, Eddi travelled around Europe with circus and performance artists before moving to London where she quickly became a sought after session vocalist.  She famously harmonized with Annie Lennox touring with the Eurythmics, after her time with successful punk outfit Gang of Four. It was the short-lived but warmly remembered Fairground Attraction that really brought her into the limelight and to the attention of a much wider audience.  The single Perfect and parent album First of a Million Kisses both topped the British charts.

However, it was her subsequent albums which signalled her increasing ability to assimilate different musical styles and make them all very much her own. Her unerring instinct for fine material, whether self penned, collaborative or a carefully chosen cover version resulted in Mirmama(1992), Eddi Reader (1994), Candyfloss & Medicine (1996), Angels & Electricity (1998), Simple Soul (2001).

Through these years Eddi based herself in London, but in 2001 she decided to move home to Glasgow where she recorded the classic Songs Of Robert Burns album released to international acclaim in 2003.

Awarded the MBE in 2006 for services to singing, she took her Burns songs on tour all over the world and found connections to the bard everywhere from Kolkata, India to Sydney, Australia. In 2006 she released Peacetimeon Rough Trade Records featuring the finest traditional players in the United Kingdom and produced by Folk Musician of The Year, John McCusker.  Constant touring with her band has created a magical organic chemistry between Eddi and her players and the results of this relationship can be found on her most recent release.

Love Is The Way,  Eddi Reader’s seventh solo album,  was released in March 2009 on Rough Trade Records.

Eddi’s Hollywood movie debut was in 2010 as she featured in Richard Linklaters, “Me And Orson Welles” with Zak Efron and Clare Danes. Eddi plays a chanteuse in the movie and is featured singing Lets Pretend That There’s A Moon with the Jools Holland Orchestra. The original soundtrack features another two performances from Eddi.

From the traditional to the contemporary, Eddi brings joyous life to all forms of song.  Her taste in co-writers, writers, songs and players is impeccable and anything with her name on it is guaranteed musical treasure. Whilst the perfection of her technique is widely acknowledged,  what sets Reader apart is the depth and quality of the emotional performance;  her ability not only to move the listener but to connect her experience to that of her audience.  Her passion and instinct move people in a way reminiscent of those who have influenced her work.  Her rare blend of meltingly true vocals and towering romanticism combine with an astute and pragmatic nature to make her a unique and powerful figure in contemporary British music.  She has effortlessly developed into one of popular music’s most thrilling and affecting performers.

Karen Matheson

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Karen Matheson’s life in the limelight began with her performing as a child in her local village hall in Argyll on the West coast of Scotland, where she was brought up immersed in the deep well of traditional songs that have been her inspiration for over 35 years of recording and performing worldwide.

Widely recognised as the compelling vocals of Scots band Capercaillie with whom she has graced the pop charts and featured in blockbuster movies, her solo career highlights have included sharing the stage with Pete Seeger in New York and performing at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where her stunning rendition of ‘Ae fond kiss’ stole the show to a televised audience of over 600 million people.

Karen has been involved in various profile projects of collaboration worldwide, including the award winning BBC series Transatlantic Sessions, on which she performed and filmed tracks with James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, The McGarrigle Sisters, Nanci Griffith, and a host of respected Scottish musicians. She has featured with many unique world music stars including Algerian singer ‘Idir’, Breton guitarist Dan Ar Braz and Portuguese Fado star Dulce Pontes.

She has released four acclaimed solo albums. For ‘The Dreaming Sea” (1996)  & ‘Time to fall” (2004) many of the songs were written by acclaimed singer-songwriter James Grant (Love& Money) and feature the Scottish Ensemble on strings. On “Downriver” from 2010 she worked with Ireland’s legendary producer Donal Lunny to create an award winning acoustic album, which provided the perfect platform for her mesmerizing vocals.

In 2015 she released ‘’Urram’’ (Respect) - a musical love letter to her families’ Hebridean roots, with a collection of timeless Gaelic songs that evoke the character and atmosphere of Island life, through waulking songs, love songs, lullabies, mouth music and evocative poems to the surroundings. The sound of the album is engagingly contemporary in it’s ambition though, with guest musicians including Seiko Keita (Senegal) on African kora, Soumik Datta (India) on Sarod, Scotland’s Mr. McFall’s chamber on strings, Innes White & Sorren MacLean on guitars, and long-term musical partner Donald Shaw on Piano.

‘a showstopper… sublime’ by fROOTS.

With Capercaillie -  “the most exciting and vibrant band in the field of Celtic music today” (Billboard), Karen has enjoyed a stellar career. Capercaillie have sold more than a million albums, performed in over thirty countries and written and featured in the Hollywood movie 'Rob Roy', with Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange, in which Karen performed a solo rendition of a Gaelic lament

In December 2010 she was presented with an Honorary degree in music from the Robert Gordon University – another achievement to add to her OBE, and award of “Best Gaelic singer” from the inaugural Scottish folk awards - just some of the many plaudits earned from an astonishing career.

“Karen Matheson has a throat that is surely touched by God’’. - Sean Connery 

John McCusker

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John McCusker is one of the most influential and respected figures in contemporary Scottish traditional music, renowned for his masterful whistle and fiddle playing, distinctive compositional voice, and rare ability to move fluidly between tradition and innovation.

Born in Bellshill, near Glasgow, John began playing whistle and fiddle as a child and joined the legendary Battlefield Band at just 17 years old. During his eleven years with the band, he established himself as a defining voice of a new generation of Scottish musicians, while also releasing his first two solo albums: John McCusker (1995) and Yella Hoose (2000).

Over a career spanning more than three decades, John has built an extraordinary body of work as a solo artist, composer, producer and collaborator. His solo releases including Hello, Goodbye, Under One Sky, and Goodnight Ginger are celebrated for their melodic depth, emotional clarity and contemporary edge, firmly rooted in tradition yet unmistakably his own. His music has also featured extensively in film and television, including Heartlands, 16 Years of Alcohol, Billy Connolly’s World Tour of New Zealand and numerous major BBC and Sky productions.

John is internationally recognised for his ability to transcend musical boundaries. Since 2008, he has been a core member of Mark Knopfler’s band, performing on arena and theatre stages around the world, including landmark runs at the Royal Albert Hall and a double bill with Bob Dylan at the Hollywood Bowl. Beyond this, he has shared stages and studios with artists including David Gilmour, Eric Clapton, Paul Weller, Paolo Nutini, Teenage Fanclub, Eddi Reader, Julie Fowlis, Vicente Amigo, Graham Coxon, The Proclaimers and many more.

Alongside his performing career, John is an acclaimed producer and mentor, working with artists such as Kris Drever, Roddy Woomble, Kate Rusby, Eliza Carthy, Linda Thompson and Eddi Reader. 

As a composer, John has published The Collection, a book of 100 original tunes that has become a valued resource for musicians worldwide, and his playing is widely studied for its tone, phrasing and expressive musicality.

John’s contributions to music have been recognised with numerous honours, including BBC Radio 2 Musician of the Year, multiple Spirit of Scotland Awards, the Good Tradition Award, and Outstanding Music Performance at the Scottish Culture Awards.

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Kris Drever

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Cherished and admired in equal measure by listeners and fellow musicians, award-winning guitarist, singer, songwriter and prolific collaborator Kris Drever has been a leading light on the UK roots scene for well over a decade.

A highly skilled guitarist who adroitly blends traditional folk and flat picking with more contemporary influences – allied to a distinctively relaxed and poised vocal burr – Drever is an astonishingly fine interpreter of others’ songs, with an increasingly frequent knack for concocting seriously smart lyrical observations and earworm melodies of his own.

Drever has played and recorded with an extensive range of artists including Mark Knopfler, Jack Bruce, Danny Thompson, Eddi Reader, Bela Fleck, Tim O’Brien, Jerry Douglas, Sarah Jarosz, Joan As Police Woman, Tinariwen, Karine Polwart and Julie Fowlis. 

Having grown up in Orkney, after leaving school and moving to Edinburgh he discovered the city’s thriving session scene in the early 2000s. After touring with numerous traditional acts his own profile flourished as part of revered folk experimental trio LAU and following the release of his much-loved debut solo LP Black Water in 2006.

An album in collaboration with Idlewild frontman Roddy Woomble and fiddler John McCusker, Before the Ruin, and a second solo album, Mark the Hard Earth, came soon after along with a steady stream of collaborative releases including last year’s visionary, nature-focused Spell Songs project.

LAU have released a succession of acclaimed and adventurous records with esteemed producers including Race the Loser with Tucker Martine (The Decemberists) and Midnight and Closedown with John Parish (PJ Harvey). All of his LAU and solo work has been released on Tom Rose’s Reveal Records label. 

The title track to Drever’s self-written third album If Wishes Were Horses, released in 2016, landed him a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award. The percussive talents of Admiral Fallow frontman Louis Abbott, consummate double bassist Euan Burton and the endless ingenuity of Sweden-based guitarist Ian Carr provided the backdrop for a crisp-sounding indie folk record he had been building towards for several years.

After a few years spent living in Shetland, in 2019 Drever relocated to Glasgow with wife Louise and their two young children – in part to make it easier to fulfil his touring commitments.

Ian Carr

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Ian Carr is widely considered to be one of the best and most influential folk guitarists of his generation. He is known for his work with Swåp, the band that “successfully united Swedish and British trad music without sounding far fetched” Dagens Nyheter Sweden, and his recent solo albums " I Like Your Taste In Music" and " Who He", his recent collaboration on Laura Jane Wilkies " Vent" album and for his work as side person of choice for many acclaimed artists in the folk music world–including  Kris Drever, Eddi Reader, Sofia Karlsson “The most innovative... and sympathetic guitarist that Britain has produced in years, in any genre...”

Kevin McGuire

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Kevin McGuire’s understated precision and musical instinct has meant he's a highly sought after double bassist performing with artists such as Karine Polwart, Kate Rusby, Eddi Reader and Dean Owens. His bass lines give the Songbook its foundation, adding warmth and groove, subtly binding voices, strings and brass into one cohesive festive sound.

The Scottish Christmas
Songbook Brass Ensemble

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The Scottish Christmas Songbook Brass Ensemble brings brilliance and lift to the stage, adding colour, depth and celebratory energy. Their rich, resonant sound transforms beloved seasonal favourites into moments of pure festive exhilaration.

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