Hands Up for Trad’s Women in Music and Culture 2024 list has been announced to celebrate just some of the women working in Scotland.
Launched as part of International Women’s Day 2023, we shine the spotlight on 12 women who all contribute towards Scotland’s cultural landscape through their work. Read the 2024 list here.
We asked Lori Watson to tell us more about there work, influences and ambitions for the future.
How did you first get involved in the arts and who were your early influences?
I was lucky to have access to music lessons at school and music in my family. I got to learn on my great-grandfather’s fiddle and I benefitted from inspiring teachers including Simon Johnson, Lucy Cowan and Iain Fraser. I was part of local groups in the Borders: the Small Hall Band and then Borders Young Fiddles. I also studied with singers, folklorists and ethnomusicologists including Anne Neilson, Alison McMorland, Margaret Bennett, Jo Miller, and Peggy Duesenberry and Scots language and culture exponents Andy Hunter and Sheila Douglas. I’ve been inspired by Borders musicians and singers such as Bob Hobkirk, Tom Hughes (thanks to the work of Pete Shepheard), and Willie Scott (thanks to the work of Francis Collinson, Bill Leader and Alison McMorland). Formative influences also included The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Tina Turner, Nirvana and Radiohead, John MacLean and Jim Kelman, Henri Matisse and Joan Eardley, Paul Gilbert (psychologist), Peter Cooke and Bruno Nettl, Dick Gaughan, Gordeanna McCulloch, and Jane Turriff (thanks to the work of Hamish Henderson). I’ll stop there! Thanks to those I’ve made music with, I’ve learned a lot about music, creativity and collaboration from you all.
At a time which has been very challenging for many people working in the arts, how did you use the last 3 years to develop your creativity?
I’ve been experimenting with traditional music and studying creativity as part of my work as a lecturer/researcher with Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. In the last few years I’ve also been focused on my family, my beautiful son Kinnen is full of creativity! Age and stage plus the state of the world invited me to simplify things a bit and let go of the feeling that I must be visible and producing all the time, which has been helpful.
Who or what interests you creatively?
Scottish traditional culture, and its depth, humanity, and universality are an infinite inspiration for me. Free improvisation practices are of particular interest at the moment, and I’m interested in vocal mechanics (how the voice works as an instrument).
Beyond culture in Scotland, I’m interested in lots of things and ideas but we’re also living with multiple, almost unbearable, horrors in the world and at home. It seems strange to answer these questions without acknowledging that; I don’t think we can just get on with things as they are.
What are your plans for the next year or so and/or what are your longer term creative ambitions?
As part of an AHRC-funded research fellowship (2023-24), I’m working on some new improvised and graphic compositions for traditional musicians and singers and developing the first national collection of larger-scale or experimental compositions by traditional musicians (‘the New Traditional School’) for the Scottish Music Centre in Glasgow. I’m also working on a book about creativity and tradition, establishing a new archive for the School of Scottish Studies Archives at the University of Edinburgh, and making a documentary in collaboration with filmmaker Ruth Barrie. I’ll be bringing traditional musician-researchers together for a symposium in October 2024 in Edinburgh, to share traditional music experiments, ideas, and practices.
https://www.tradmus.com
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In the longer term, I want to keep the balance between the music-making and the research. Traditional and Border ballads are sitting with me more and more, and I’m enjoying working in the spaces between genres, between forms, and between cultural conventions. There are also a few recordings in the pipeline.
Find out more about Lori Watson here.
Read the Hands Up for Trad’s Women in Music and Culture 2024 List
Hands Up for Trad are an organisation who work with Scottish traditional music, language and culture. If you would like to support our work you can donate here.
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