MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2016: Kaela Rowan

Congratulations to Kaela Rowan who have been nominated in Gaelic singer of the Year sponsored by Macmeanmna in the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2016. Vote now!

We asked Kaela Rowan of Kaela Rowan the following questions.

Tell us about yourself
“Wrapping a warm balm of sound around your troubles”
– Tim Carroll, Folk Words

"Mesmerising"
– Divya Bhatia, Jodhpur Riff

Kaela Rowan’s voice has come a long way since her teens when she was singing in folk bands and playing sessions and festivals around her home in the Scottish Highlands. Citing an eclectic range of early influences – John Martyn, Planxty and Joni Mitchell, amongst others – Kaela has since forged her own unique path in the Scottish music scene.

Moving to Edinburgh in her twenties, her passion for traditional song and dance led her to her becoming a dance and traditional music tutor for organisations such as DanceBase and Feisean Nan Gaidheal. Currently Kaela holds the post of Traditional Song Development Worker in the Scottish Borders.

Kaela Rowan is best known as lead singer with the influential Scottish band Mouth Music. She recorded four albums with the band and toured globally with them in the 1990s.

Much in demand for her beautiful voice, she has recorded and performed with Eliza Carthy Band, Karen Matheson, The Mike McGoldrick Band, Nusa, Anna Murray, The Loveboat Big Band, The Bevvy Sisters and many more. Most recently she joined Shooglenifty for their acclaimed seventh album The Untied Knot, bringing a dynamic new element to the band's sound. She toured extensively with the Shoogles throughout 2015, and will be on the road with the band again in 2016 including gigs in Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and India.

The Fruited Thorn is Kaela’s second solo album. She released Menagerie in 2014.

Kaela co-produced The Fruited Thorn with James Mackintosh

Why are you involved in Scottish music?
I'm very fortunate to have been surrounded by traditional music since I can remember. The community I grew up in in Lochaber and Moidart had a very lively session scene, and I found myself singing and playing in from my early years, so it was just a very natural progression for me to join a band (Pennycroft) in my teens.

As I grew up I became aware of the greater community of traditional music throughout Scotland, through performing with Pennycroft, visiting folk festivals, and teaching at various feisean.

These days, it feels like our community, through openness and innovation is keeping our deeply rooted traditions alive and blossoming, and I'm a wee bit proud to be a part of that.

Any particular career highlights?
Singing with the great Dick Gaughan was definitely a real highlight, seeing as I ate, slept and breathed his "A Handful of Earth "album in my early singing days.

Performing on the Mainstage at the Woodford Festival just before the bells on Hogmanay 2014/15 was incredible. The venue is a huge natural amphitheatre in the middle of the Queensland rainforest, and I sang a Gaelic air whilst Bunna Lawrie, an Australian Aboriginal singer and musician, performed an ancient fire ritual in front of a crowd of 40,000 people to bring in the new year, a real honour and such an amazing atmosphere!

Everyone of my trips to Rajasthan has been amazing, from our first performance in 2012, a dawn concert on a dias overlooking the city of Jodphur, from darkness to sunrise, with the city slowly waking below, to Shooglenifty's collaborative mainstage concerts (in 2014 and 2015) with the local Manganiyar musicians.

Our first rehearsal with the Rajasthanis was unforgettable, as when those guys sing or play, they do so with incredible passion, and it's a really powerful, almost overwhelming experience to be sitting in the midst of them in while they're in full swing.

Looking back to my younger days, just being in a session with the great Glenuig musicians Iain and Allan Macdonald was a pretty special experience!

Having been a huge fan of his since my Glenuig days, a total life highlight was meeting James Taylor, and spending a couple of hours blethering with him in a van en route to Edinburgh Airport. To my delight we got stuck in a traffic jam and I had the opportunity to sing some puirt into his left ear.

What are your plans for the future?
Celtic Connections – January 2017
English tour – February 2017
Scottish tour – March 2017

Recording with Shooglenifty in India – April 2017

If you would like to come along to the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards in Dundee’s Caird Hall call the Caird Hall box office on (01382) 434940 or buy online.