Born and raised on the small island of Burray in Orkney, Douglas Montgomery grew up in a community where music and togetherness were inseparable. His earliest and most formative influence was his first teacher, William Sinclair — a farmer who had studied music in Edinburgh in the 1950s and whose passion for the instrument left a lasting impression on the young Douglas. Every Friday evening, Douglas would make his way to Sinclair’s farm for hours of playing classical music and Scottish traditional tunes, sustained by tea and home bakes from Sinclair’s wife Margaret. Sinclair gave him a thorough grounding in technique, phrasing, and tone, but more importantly passed on a genuine love and respect for music that has stayed with Douglas throughout his life.
His mother, who learned fiddle alongside him — always a page or two ahead — and his granny, who kept traditional music playing constantly in the home, completed a musical environment that was rich, warm, and deeply rooted. Saturday evenings meant tuning into Scottish music on the radio, often dancing around the kitchen, while Douglas’s grand-uncles would record the programmes onto cassette tapes, spend the following evenings learning the tunes, and pass them on to him. That tradition of sharing music by ear, from one generation to the next, shaped his understanding of what traditional music is and what it’s for.
From around the age of eight, Douglas took part in the Orkney Folk Festival fiddle competitions, which opened his ears to the wider folk world and led him into sessions. In his early teens, a meeting with mandolin and banjo players Dick Levens and Jim Hall proved transformative — their embrace of improvisation and a wide range of styles, always rooted in traditional tunes, broadened his musical horizons considerably and led to the formation of his first band, The Smoking Stone Band, which introduced him to the world of performing and touring.
Over the decades since, Douglas has performed across the world with Saltfishforty and The Chair, and for fifteen years has musically directed The Gathering, the Orkney Folk Festival’s flagship project, working alongside musicians including Fergal Scahill, Dirk Powell, and Anna Massie. He has also performed with the GRIT Orchestra and with Strathspey and Surreal — a body of collaborative work that reflects both the breadth of his musicianship and his deep commitment to the traditional music community.
Yet it is perhaps as a teacher that Douglas’s contribution to Orkney’s musical life runs deepest. He has taught fiddle in Orkney’s primary and secondary schools for many years, at times teaching around 100 students each week, and his influence on the current generation of Orkney fiddlers is immeasurable. Many of the musicians who now define the island’s thriving traditional music scene first picked up a bow under Douglas’s guidance — and a number of his former pupils have gone on to become teachers themselves, carrying forward the same values of joy, community, and musical integrity that he instilled in them. He has been a guest tutor at Newcastle University, Blazin’ in Beauly, and the Cromarty Fiddle Weekend, and has led workshops at Celtic Colours, the Scots Fiddle Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Shetland Folk Festival, HebCelt, and many more. Whether his pupils have gone on to perform at Celtic Connections, play at care homes, or simply make music for the love of it, Douglas takes equal pride in all of them. What matters most to him is seeing young people enjoy music as much as he does — and encouraging them to play from the heart.
Douglas Montgomery’s induction into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame recognises a lifetime of inspired performance and an extraordinary contribution to teaching that has shaped the sound of a generation of Orkney fiddlers.