Scots Trad Music Awards

An amazing showcase this past weekend

For those who keep track of days, sorry I missed my usual Monday deadline yesterday for my usual article about our music & walking trip! We’re currently visiting the Scottish Northeast, and next time will be talking about Findhorn and the great Northeast fiddler Douglas Lawrence.

The reason for this delay is that I was a bit busy. We’re in Inverness just now, and several events conspired to occupy my time and attention in the past few days. One was the very popular “Live at Five” online program full of music and controlled chaos, presented every Friday since it was begun during the pandemic, at MacGregor’s Bar. Bruce MacGregor, the great traditional fiddler who founded the band Blazin Fiddles, owns the bar and sponsors regular music sessions there, including concerts, “Live at Five”, Sunday afternoon Scottish sessions, Thursday night bluegrass sessions, and occasional additional events depending on who’s in town.

The “Live at Five” program features live performances, brief video clips of recent doings such as musical events, new food or drink items, and interviews of folk who show up at the bar. This past Friday, my son Neil and I were the live guests, and we had a great time playing fiddle and piano for everyone, both on our own and together with Bruce. It was a real blast. Live shows and past videos of these events are available on the MacGregor’s Bar Facebook page; our show can be seen at this link.

The next night was a big event of the year, the Scots Trad Music Awards. Just prior to the colorful evening event, a special gathering celebrated the 2024 inductees into the Scots Trad Music Hall of Fame. I was scheduled to receive a plaque marking my induction into the Hall of Fame for services to the Scottish music community. This is essentially a lifetime achievement award, and I am deeply honored to have received this recognition for work described at this link.

Held in the greenhouse of the Inverness botanical gardens, which was quite balmy on a very cold day, the ceremony included the induction of a number of people for services to community, to performance, to Gaelic, to Scots, and more, as listed here.

Immediately following came the big evening event, the Scots Trad Music Awards, which are held in late November or early December in a different city in Scotland each year. You can read more about the event and the work of the sponsoring organization, Hands Up for Trad, in an earlier article.

Mixed into this major event were performances by Skipinish, Julie Fowlis, Laura Wilkie, and a number of others. Two emcees spoke in Gaelic and Scots, and sometimes even in English, listing the finalists for many trad music awards, such as live act of the year, band of the year, musician of the year, and so on. A few photos from Saturday’s event can be found on the BBC website.

What an amazing production, the whole thing, live acts with smoke and colorful lighting, live TV cameras from BBC Alba, images and announcements on large TV monitors displaying the nominees, winners, and sometimes a videotaped thank you or a clip showing on the live TV show.

The collegiality of finalists and the overall supportiveness and enthusiasm of the crowd were palpable, a testament to the vitality of the Scottish traditional music scene.

After it was over, there was, of course, an afterparty at MacGregor’s Bar.

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The next day, Laura, Neil and I had brunch at a cafe in the two-story art gallery that used to be the Assembly Hall for the Inverness Royal Academy. The grand Victorian building has been refurbished for use as the Inverness Creative Academy, just one of 21 centers throughout Scotland that are part of the “Wasps” program (Workshops and Artists Studio Provision Scotland). This amazing program has, since the 1970s, provided space for artist studios, creative offices, coworking spaces, exhibition halls for displaying and selling artwork, and other events supporting the arts in Scotland.

And that’s why I missed my deadline yesterday!