Posts for January, 2023

‘Dusk Moon’ UK Tour 2023


“one of the most exciting bands of the Scottish folk scene” (Songlines *****)

RURA are set to return to stages across the UK with their hotly anticipated fourth studio album Dusk Moon, in March 2023. The award-winning quartet have been a mainstage highlight at the world’s leading folk music festivals for over 10 years, touring across Europe, Canada, Asia Australia and New Zealand, and return to UK venues this spring.


By far their most collaborative record to date, Dusk Moon is a continuation of the creative journey RURA embarked upon in 2018 with producer Euan Burton, with the release of their critically acclaimed album In Praise of Home.


Inspired by a deep sense of reflection and hope, Dusk Moon sees the band’s progressive, emotive and powerful sound continue to develop, connecting with fans and music lovers around the globe. Renowned for cinematic arrangements that draw from people and landscape throughout Scotland, their spellbinding live show is not to be missed.

The band’s sixth release, Dusk Moon is the latest milestone for the Glasgow-based group who continually evolve and push boundaries.


Most recently, RURA stepped back from their own writing to arrange and record with five of the biggest names in the UK folk scene. Our Voices Echo was performed to a sell-out crowd at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal during Celtic Connections 2022, with an all-star band including collaborators Julie Fowlis, Duncan Chisholm, Michael McGoldrick, Ross Ainslie and Hannah Rarity.

Jazz is the main category with Classical being second with elements of Folk music. Through my compositional style in my piece Chasing Sakura, I hope to push genre boundaries by mixing these different musical styles into one common style -music. My goal is to bring Jazz to the Classical music platform, Classical to a Folk audience, and Folk into the Jazz realm. I believe this is music which transcends the need for pigeon-holing -with a flavour of many styles of music to be enjoyed by all music lovers. I also offer music from the Great American Songbook with intricate, jazz/classical styled arrangements to cater for the jazz fan

Having seen his first three albums nominated for an array of awards, including Scottish Album of the Year (in 2014, 2017 and 2018) and the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Adam’s masterful songwriting and enchanting voice has seen him work with the likes of producer John Wood (Nick Drake and John Martyn), Simon Heyworth (mastering engineer and co-producer of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells) and two-time BRIT award winner Eddi Reader.


Conjuring comparisons to The Band and Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Holmes combines elements of rhythm and blues, country and folk music textures, which have seen him featured widely on BBC Radio 2 and Radio 3, BBC Scotland and Edith Bowman’s BBC Scotland Quay Sessions show and Virgin Radio, amongst many others. He is also a regular on the UK and European festival and touring circuit, having shared bills with the likes of Laura Marling, Van Morrison, Richard Thompson, Jason Isbell, The Avett Brothers, Sturgill Simpson and Chvrches.


“Captivating… Entrancing…a potent style of his own…” Metro


“An ideal example of everything that’s good about acoustic / traditional music…” Folk Radio UK


“The best Scottish male singer of his generation…” The Courier


“Sweetly mournful melodies”
The Scotsman


“Adam Holmes is one of the brightest rising stars on the UK roots music scene” The List


“Classy” Stephen Malkmus

St Margaret’s plays host to Scotland’s Makar, our national poet, for a daytime ‘in conversation’ event just days after Burns Night.

Kathleen Jamie, poet and essayist, was born in 1962. Her work concerns nature, travel and culture, Her non-fiction includes the Findings trilogy (Findings, Sightlines and Surfacing) all regarded as important contributions to the ‘new nature writing’.

Kathleen’s prize-winning poetry collections have been gathered into a recent Selected Poems (Picador 2019).

She was raised in Currie, Midlothian and has what Robert Louis Stevenson called ‘a strong Scots accent of the mind’.

Her poems have appeared on the Underground systems of London, New York and Shanghai and, closer to home, one of her poems was chosen by the public to be carved on a huge wooden beam on the national monument at Bannockburn.

Kathleen was for many years a tutor of creative writing at the universities of St Andrew’s and Stirling, and now freelances, having made a recent foray into editing with Antlers of Water, Scottish Writing on Nature and the Environment.

Fiona Kennedy OBE DL is one of Scotland’s best known singer-songwriters and broadcasters. She has produced a variety of shows for stage and television over the years and is a tireless volunteer and ambassador for a number of charities, not least as a Trustee of St Margaret’s Braemar.

Her musical accomplishments are incredibly varied and include singing for Her late Majesty The Queen on several occasions, performing at Edinburgh Castle during the G8 Summit, shows at Celtic Connections and the BBC’s Transatlantic Sessions and touring with Runrig.

She has hosted television programmes for PBS in America, narrated Peter and the Wolf and The Snowman alongside the RSNO and acted in a number of roles including Alfie in the West End and in the 1973 cult classic film The Wicker Man.

Each year Fiona brings some of the world’s biggest names in Country and Americana to the St Margaret’s stage in a pan-celtic celebration of music called Transatlantic Connections, with performances from Beth Nielsen Chapman, Mary Gauthier and Verlon Thompson in recent years. In January 2022, she interviewed poet, writer and former Makar Jackie Kay on her life and work in literature.

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This hour-long lunchtime event will delve into Kathleen Jamie’s influences and her journey from being brought up in a non-literary, ordinary Scottish family to becoming Scotland’s Makar, penning new works for national occasions —the opening of The Scottish Parliament and most recently following the death of Her Majesty the Queen.

Following the event, a selection of Kathleen’s books and collections will be available to purchase and the author will be available to sign these.

Teas, coffees, snacks and soft-drinks will be available.

This event is delivered in partnership with The Fife Arms.

Join us for a traditional evening of food, festivities & more. Bring your own bottle. BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Join Cairngorms Astronomy Club and TGDT in The Square, Tomintoul for a moon viewing session.

We’ll have the Celestron telescope and a smartphone bracket that will allow you to take the moon home in your pocket!

Join Cairngorms Astronomy Group and Tomintoul & Glenlivet Development Trust for a night of stargazing at Inveraven Church & Pictish Stones. What did the Celts see in the night sky? Can these enigmatic monuments shed any light on Pictish astronomy? Come along to find out more.

BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winners, Irish/Manx/Scottish quintet Ímar are amongst Glasgow’s hottest folk property.


With a wide-reaching fanbase throughout the UK, Europe, USA and Canada, the quintet have fast become one of the trad scene’s most talked about group – thanks in no small part to their debut video, L’Air Mignonne, becoming a viral smash in 2016, catapulting the group to the attention of audiences and media worldwide.


Their two albums – Afterlight and Avalanche – have since amassed a devoted listenership, whilst live audiences are transfixed by Ímar’s collective and individual technical prowess. With a line-up boasting a heavyweight haul of top solo prizes – including nine All-Ireland and eight All-Britain titles – the group’s collective synergy and live energy is positively electric.


Adam Brown (bodhrán), Adam Rhodes (bouzouki), Mohsen Amini (concertina), Ryan Murphy (uilleann pipes) and Tomás Callister (fiddle) share a strong background in Irish music; a grounding that underpins many of Ímar’s distinctive qualities, in both instrumentation and material. Indeed, the group’s very being embodies a personal reconnection with its members’ formative years, dating back long before their recent camaraderie around Glasgow’s celebrated session scene.


The shared cultural heritages between Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man are well documented: all three once shared the same Gaelic language, and a similar, clearly potent, kinship endures between their musical traditions.


“striking musicianship, artful arrangements and sheer absolute delight” / Songlines


“genuinely jaw-dropping collective virtuosity supplied frills to burn” / The Scotsman


“The energy that’s seemingly bursting to let loose is tempered by a variety of instrumental formations and an attention to pacing that showcases the tunes’ melodic strength, and even when the floodgates open the effect is all the more exhilarating for the underlying control and musicality.” / The Herald

This lightweight 3-day trek includes 2 high wild camps and a more leisurely way of summiting the UK’s next 5 highest mountains, all over 4000 feet, after Ben Nevis – Ben Macdui, Braeriach, Carn Toul, Angels Peak, and Cairn Gorm. Additionally there will be an option to summit the additional Munros of Devil’s Point and Carn a Mhaim. It will also give you plenty of time to fully absorb and appreciate the unique environments presented in the central Cairngorms.

All equipment and food is provided and included in the price.

Blow away the cobwebs and start the New Year with a guided walk of historic Grantown-on-Spey. Discover the history and heritage of this planned town dating from 1765. The walk will start from the war memorial in the Square and head down through the beautiful Anagach woods to the River Spey. Return by a different route to the High St and Square.