MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards: Tina Jordan Rees

Congratulations to Tina Jordan Rees who has been nominated in Composer of the Year sponsored by PRS for Music in the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2014. Vote now!

We asked Tina Jordan Rees the following questions.

Tell us about yourself
I’m Tina Jordan Rees, a musician, composer and tutor from Clitheroe in Lancashire, now based in Glasgow.
I play piano, flute and whistle, am an avid composer and enjoy teaching. I have a passion for folk music which is reflected in the music I create and arrange.

As a professional musician my work is very varied and I really enjoy it. My projects at the moment include playing piano in a duo with fiddler Gráinne Brady, in the four-piece band ‘Top Floor Taivers’, and performing in another duo under Live Music Now Scotland with Kristan Harvey.

Like myself, Gráinne has a love for writing tunes and we play only our own compositions in our duo. I love working out new arrangements and performing all our material, as well as playing exciting new tunes. I also take inspiration from Gráinne as she writes fantastic tunes.
‘Top Floor Taivers’ is a new project for me along with Claire Hastings, Heather Downie and Gráinne Brady. We combine vocals with piano, fiddle and harp and perform traditional and contemporary Scottish songs and tunes, again including many of our own compositions.
Live Music Now Scotland is a charity that brings live music to those who might not normally be able to access it and gives performing opportunities to young musicians. I have travelled all over Scotland with Kristan performing these really rewarding concerts and I love doing them.

I have always been very creative, not only in music but in other areas including knitting, sewing, drawing, painting and designing Irish dance costumes.
In music my creative energy has been highly channelled into composing and this year I decided to create a project for myself called #tuneoftheweek. I have written one tune every week for the last 27 weeks. I’m having so much fun with this project, it’s great! I spend the week thinking about what I might write next. Sometimes I plan what I’m going to write and sometimes I just see what comes out. It’s a very exciting process and I’m loving seeing what I can create each week.

I take inspiration from a variety of sources including traditional and contemporary Scottish and Irish music, music from further afield and also from the Irish dance world, which is another big part of my life. I feel that I am inspired by the buzz of living in Glasgow, by the peaceful scenery that surrounds my hometown of Clitheroe and I also find that my own particular mood can have an effect on the tunes that I compose, and not always in the way I expect.

I have been an Irish dancer since the age of five and I now dance during gigs and also play the music for dancers at competitions. I’ve released two Irish dance albums and create custom music pieces for Irish dance choreography worldwide.

As well as performing, composing and recording, I also teach piano and whistle. I have a lovely bunch of individual pupils and have also taught at fèis across Scotland.

Why are you involved in Scottish music?
Having somewhat fallen into the world of Scottish music, I absolutely love it and now couldn’t imagine my life without it. I played classical piano from a young age and began to learn to Irish dance at around the same time. Through this I became involved in a local Comhaltas group and learned Irish music on the tin whistle, progressing on to the flute in my teenage years. I knew I didn’t want any other career than music, so I went to study on the BA in Irish Music and Dance at the University of Limerick in Ireland. During my third year there I had the opportunity to study elsewhere for a semester. I chose to come to Glasgow to study Scottish Music at the (then) Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. I loved Scottish music and the Glasgow folk music scene so much that I ended up transferring over here permanently and completing my degree in Scottish Music in Glasgow.

Any particular career highlights?
I was a finalist in the 2011 BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year award. It was such a great experience being involved in the competition. I made an album with the other finalists and we went on a Scottish tour. It was fantastic and really gave me experience and confidence to pursue my dreams in the Scottish music world. Last year I was nominated in the ‘Up and Coming Artist of the Year’ category at the 2013 Scots Trad Music Awards. I was absolutely delighted to be nominated for the award and it spurred me on to keep working hard to achieve my goals.
A real highlight for me at the moment is my tune of the week project. This has been such an amazing project, and I have really grown as a composer, a performer and a person since I started. I’m finding it exciting to see what I can create each week. It was brilliant being phoned up by Travelling Folk early on in the project, to have a wee interview with Bruce MacGregor and to have one of my tracks played during the show. It has all been very rewarding.

What are your plans for the future?
I’m planning to make an album of my compositions, and also a book of tunes from my #tuneoftheweek project. I have so many ideas, many of which have formed from recording my new tunes each week. I like to record layers of instruments and create arrangements of the tunes and would love to make them into a full album.

My plans for the future also include continuing to move forward with my current duo and band projects. ‘Gráinne and Tina’ are planning to record and release our debut album next year, and the new band ‘Top Floor Taivers’ is just getting going so I’m looking forward to progressing with that – we have just made an EP and I can’t wait to get performing.

Personally I am just looking forward to continuing to grow as a musician and push myself out of my comfort zone to see what I can achieve. I hope to continue to experience and create exciting music.

Buy a ticket for the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards on Saturday 13th December in Inverness Leisure, start time 7pm. You’ll have a great time!