Simon Thoumire's "Hands Up for Trad"
Tireless and multifaceted support for Scotland's traditional music
Last week, we visited Dunbar, where during our last music and walking tour there, we were visited by the great, innovative concertina player, Simon Thoumire. In addition to being an amazing musician, Simon does an incredible job supporting Scotland’s traditional music — this article touches on some of the many projects he sponsors through Hands Up for Trad.
The following article (from Scottish Life magazine, 2018) is from MusicScapes of Scotland: Vignettes from Prehistory to Pandemic, available as a paperback and ebook from Amazon U.S. and U.K. and through other options, including signed copies, listed on my author website.
Like the Oscars or the Grammies, the annual “MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards” represents something more powerful than the glitz and pageantry of live TV, something more meaningful than winning and losing. These ceremonies embrace and promote a community of artists and the whole culture of traditional music in Scotland.
Behind this awards ceremony is a small organization called Hands Up for Trad, led by its Creative Director, concertina player Simon Thoumire, who has tirelessly supported the music, musicians, and music industry of Scotland for the past 20 years. Hands Up for Trad manages more than 20 projects, with funding from Creative Scotland, a Scottish governmental organization promoting the arts. Captivated by tradition and tuned into technology, Thoumire seems to work nonstop managing projects and dreaming up new ones, and yet he still finds time twice a week to personally mentor musicians and help them solve problems in their careers or musical projects.
Thoumire recalls when he himself competed in a prominent competition for young musicians back in 1989. He arrived in London primed for an intense experience, only to be astonished at how friendly all the competitors were to each other. The same congenial atmosphere impressed him when he judged a similar competition 10 years later. It’s a cooperative spirit that now pervades his events and builds community spirit.
The Scots Trad Music Awards ceremony first took place in 2003, and is held every year in early December in various locations throughout Scotland. Since 2008, it has been called the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards in honor of its sponsor. MG Alba partners with BBC Scotland to broadcast BBC Alba, Scotland’s Gaelic TV channel.
The ceremony airs live, with announcements in Gaelic and English, and sometimes in Scots as well, so that it is accessible to everyone. The glamorous evening includes performances by a variety of musicians, in addition to the much anticipated awards presentations. Last December [2017], awards were given for Album of the Year (All We Have Now by the Elephant Sessions), Scottish Pipe Band of the Year (Inverary & District), top live act (Skippinish), Gaelic singer of the year (Robert Robertson), and Scottish Folk Band of the Year (Talisk). All nominees and winners were selected by the public in a process that tallied over 100,000 votes from around the world. As Thoumire points out, it’s the public that goes to the gigs, buys the CDs, and generally supports the music, so the public should make the decisions. Only the Album of the Year category makes use of an expert panel to whittle the list of nominees from about 45 to 20 semifinalists, with the finalists and winner chosen by public vote.
To help people choose the Album of the Year, and also to promote some of Scotland’s top bands, Thoumire released a free podcast on November 1, which is still available from Hands Up for Trad. Containing well over an hour of music, the podcast presents one full track from each of the 20 semifinalists for the prize, along with links to each band’s website. This is one of over 160 free monthly podcasts, allowing online visitors from some 140 countries experience the best in Scottish music. In addition to these audio broadcasts, Thoumire has also published videos on the Hands Up for Trad YouTube channel, including interviews of musicians, collations of Scottish music videos (with whimsical introductions by Thoumire himself), and a very fun Trad Awards Quiz show pitting one band against another in a humorous game-show setting.
Hands Up for Trad runs two other major awards ceremonies. One is a dinner at which musicians and music industry professionals are inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame to honor lifetime achievements. Awards are also presented for Services to Community, Services to Scots (support for the Scots language and culture), and Services to Collecting (of traditional music and songs).
The other awards ceremony is the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Awards, which began in 2000 and was so successful that it inspired the launch of the Trad Music Awards. The Young Traditional Musician Awards was started by Simon Thoumire along with Clare McLaughlin and the TMSA (Traditional Music and Song Association).
This event, focused on honoring and encouraging younger musicians, begins each year with a series of performances. Twelve semifinalists emerge after the first round, at which point they are taken on a music retreat to meet, play music, and learn about marketing and other aspects of the music business. Another competitive performance follows, narrowing the competitive field to six finalists, who perform at the Celtic Connections Festival in late January to determine the winner. Though winning is the hope, there’s a supportive atmosphere throughout the event. If you want to hear the future of Scottish traditional music, keep an ear out for the six annual finalists from these competitions. The 2018 winneres were bagpiper David Shedden, singer Amy Papiransky, singer Hannah Rarity, pianist Rory Matheson, guitarist Luc McNally, and whistle player/bagpiper Alexander Levack.
The educational side of the Young Traditional Musician Awards is only the tip of the iceberg for Hands Up for Trad. Three other major projects focus almost entirely on education. Distil is a unique project allowing professional Scottish traditional musicians to work with professionals from very different genres, such as jazz and classical music, to mutually broaden musical horizons. Tinto is the name of a series of residential summer music schools held in the countryside for high school kids. A weekend program is offered for adults, as well as some “taster” weekends of instruction and fun given free of charge to kids aged 8-14. A similar program, the Edinburgh Youth Gaitherin, gives urban kids a chance to study with professional traditional musicians.
Some of the other projects run by Hands Up for Trad are not primarily physical events. The Inspiration Award is presented to spotlight musicians who innovate with Scottish music. The Business Limelight Award recognizes one business each month that contributes to the arts and culture of Scotland. Landmark Awards recognize institutions who demonstrate longstanding support of live music; for example, the Irvine Folk Club was honored for 50 years of producing concerts. Another honor, called Scotland Live, rewards producers who establish new regular venues for live music by providing financial help and professional mentorship.
The list of supportive programs includes the Chorus Awards, which highlight musical offerings within local communities. Originally focused on community singing, this project has grown to recognize musical community work of various kinds. Recent Chorus Awards went to a fiddle instructor, a charity fundraiser, a youth brass band, a public ukelele and singing group, a singing group for people with respiratory ailments, and a Shetland effort to teach schoolchildren to sing in their local dialect. Another community-based project is Scotland Sings, which runs five workshops a year, with local workshop leaders teaching people to sing, join a choir, or even start a new one.
In addition to teaching, encouraging and recognizing achievements, Thoumire’s organization also provides online services for musicians. Folkwaves makes available tracks by Scottish musicians to radio stations for airplay. The Music Hub gives composers of new tunes a chance to upload and share them with others – over 400 tunes have been shared publicly since 2015. The Tour Directory is a listing of venues and promoters for those planning tours in Scotland. Finally, there’s TradLive, launched in September 2017, which Hands Up for Trad calls the world’s first online trad music festival. Presented on YouTube, this event featured a full day of live Scottish musicians performing and talking about their music.
Hands Up for Trad is running so many programs to promote, educate, and boost traditional music in Scotland that Simon Thoumire and his Hands Up for Trad deserve an award for many years of tireless support of Scottish music – if there were only some other organization to present it!
Then again, perhaps the increasingly vibrant and tight-knit community of musicians, industry professionals, and listeners that keeps Scottish traditional music alive and growing is the best reward of all.