Hands Up for Trad’s Women in Music and Culture 2025 list has been announced to celebrate just some of the women working in Scotland.
Launched as part of International Women’s Day 2025, we shine the spotlight on 12 women who all contribute towards Scotland’s cultural landscape through their work. Read the 2025 list here.
We asked Ali Burns to tell us more about her work, influences and ambitions for the future.
How did you first get involved in the arts and who were your early influences?
I think I’ve always been in love with voice and singing. At primary school I was lucky to have Laura Brand as a music teacher – half of the Aberdeenshire singing duo Anne and Laura Brand – and she set me up with not only a love of traditional and Scots song but a fluency in Tonic Sol Fah for which I’ll be forever grateful. And in my young adult life I took part in two events that were to change my life. One was an afternoon with the inspirational poet, Linda Chase (1941-2011) at a workshop that set me off on a lifetime of exploring ideas through text and music. The other was a weekend voice workshop with Frankie Armstrong, (a member of The London Critics group under direction of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger) who taught voice at the National Theatre for 18 years and had developed a methodology and workshop techniques for teaching singing where unconfident participants were part or all of the mix. I was totally inspired (and still am) by the realisation that a participatory workshop is an art-form in its own right. Not a performance or a showcase. The journey not the destination.
In a time when many artists and creative professionals are facing significant challenges, how have you developed and evolved your creative practice over the past few years?
I always have some slow themes working over a few years in my song-writing and quite a few years ago now I began using visual art to explore those themes in a deeper way. This process will often lead me to new places in my thinking and without the pressure to monetise.
Then during the Covid pandemic I undertook a year of Contemporary Art Practice at Leith School of Art in Edinburgh, and at the same time a 9 month intensive visual-art teacher training online with Connie Solera, an American artist. Connie is a highly intuitive and insightful teacher and while I didn’t go into the course thinking I wanted to teach visual art I had a hunch that there would be techniques and ideas that I could translate and bring back to my singing workshops. Since that training I found myself in a rich place where I examine and reflect on my workshop practice and process much more deeply than before.
I’m a firm believer that teaching is a beautifully regenerative practice where you are constantly surprised and inspired by the people you meet and who feed back into your work. I found this to be especially true during the pandemic when I ran Songbirds: Composing for Community Choirs (with a particular emphasis on writing for aural learners). The process of developing this year long course and working with participants continues, even years later, to inspire my own song-writing. I now mentor community choir song leaders in writing their own material and it’s one of the most rewarding parts of my work life.
Who or what interests you creatively?
I love the distillation of big ideas into simple metaphor and enjoy any artform that has a relevant-to-its-time-and-place social context. I read a lot of poetry and enjoy visual art in many forms, especially land art, as well as theatre and contemporary dance. I’m currently writing – in the broadest sense – about transition from high to low carbon lifestyle; land politics; space junk; community and belonging. Too many names to mention for inspiration but I love work in any art form that takes my brain on a journey – that makes me think hard and make links between those ideas and my work, my community and the whole of society.
What are your plans for the next year or so and/or what are your longer term creative ambitions?
I’m probably coming into the last 10 years or so of my working life and am now thinking about that span as time for creating legacy for younger educators and practitioners. Tidying up the loose ends! I’m still a prolific writer for workshops so no plans to stop that just yet but I’m gradually distilling my thoughts with a view to writing about workshop practice in the near future. I’ve long been interested in building networks of support for people involved in leading community singing and am looking forward to organising a regional gathering for Scotland’s Natural Voice Network members next year. And to being part of a steering group convened by Love Music Productions to create a national strategy for supporting community singing leaders.
Find out more about Ali Burns 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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