St Andrew's Fair

As part of our commitment to St Andrew's Fair Saturday we're excited to be partnering with our friends at The Soundhouse Organisation to bring some of Scotland's best musicians to our stage.

Award-winning fiddler, composer, producer and curator, Aidan O'Rourke (one third of Lau) is a pioneer of new sound in folk music who has redefined traditional forms. With roots in Scottish and Irish folk, Aidan was named Musician of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2014 and has released four solo albums. In his latest project, he wrote a tune every day for a year in response to a short story collection by James Robertson and recorded the resulting 365 tunes with Kit Downes, guitarist Sorren Maclean and harpist Esther Swift. '365: Vol 2' was released in August 2019 and featured at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Aidan will be bringing friends to perform with him, including winner of the 2016 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, and 2017 Scots Trad Music Awards ‘Up and Coming’ nominee, Skye piper Brìghde Chaimbeul. A native Gaelic speaker, her style is rooted in her indigenous language and culture, but draws inspiration from a variety of piping traditions such as from Cape Breton, Eastern Europe and Ireland. Her debut album ‘The Reeling’ was produced by Aidan and was long-listed for the 2019 Scottish Album of the Year Award.

There will also be a set by The Soundhouse Choir, who will perform 'Songs from Scotland'. Led by Heather Macleod of The Bevvy Sisters, this is an 'all-welcome' choir who perform regularly at The Queen's Hall to rave reviews.