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Hands Up for Trad\u2019s Women in Music and Culture 2025 list has been announced to celebrate just some of the women working in Scotland. <\/p>\nHands Up for Trad\u2019s Women in Music and Culture 2025 list has been announced to celebrate just some of the women working in Scotland. <\/p>\n
Launched as part of International Women\u2019s Day 2025<\/a>, we shine the spotlight on 12 women who all contribute towards Scotland\u2019s cultural landscape through their work. Read the 2025 list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n We asked Corrina Hewat<\/strong> to tell us more about her work, influences and ambitions for the future.<\/p>\n How did you first get involved in the arts and who were your early influences?<\/strong> Of course I was influenced once I hit the 80\u2019s and being a teenager by Rickie Lee Jones, Bonnie Raitt, Liz Fraser in Cocteau Twins, Tori Amos, Ishbel McAskill, Kathleen MacInnes, Kristen Nogues, Maria Schneider, Robert Smith of The Cure. And on my instrument, the harp, when I started learning around the age of 14 (so hazy) I was influenced by Savourna Stevenson and her dynamic playing. Having listened all my life to music, it was a simple process for me to recreate it on my instrument. I didn\u2019t really understand it, but I learned by ear really well. And then Maire Ni Chathasaigh, the Irish harper, taught me process, patience, and an understanding of technique.<\/p>\n 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?<\/strong> Who or what interests you creatively?<\/strong> What are your plans for the next year or so and\/or what are your longer term creative ambitions?<\/strong> Find out more about Corrina Hewat here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Read the Hands Up for Trad\u2019s Women in Music and Culture 2024 List<\/a><\/p>\n
\nI was blessed to be surrounded by the arts in various forms growing up. My mum and dad were both very creative, painting, writing, singing, music was a part of our daily lives, not in a pressured way, but in a supportive way. They shared the best in music with us, listening to the singer-songwriters, the likes of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, , Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles. UK based artists like John Martyn, Davy Graham, Richard and Linda Thomson, June Tabor, Silly Sisters, Bert Jansch, Kate Bush and earlier jazz like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, plus also the more trad music like Planxty, Christy Moore and Moving Hearts,. I\u2019m just listing who I can remember playing in the house and whose songs were sung in the sessions with 6 part harmony.<\/p>\n
\nWhen the lockdowns happened, I went online. Learning how to teach harp on Zoom, learning Final Cut Pro and making harmony singing videos for community groups, becoming my own lighting engineer and buying tons of ridiculous equipment, learning how to use a mixer to mix my own sound, become my own marketeer and publicist, plus social media expert. I was asking myself to be all those different people which wasn\u2019t sustainable, but it kept me putting food on the table. (My social media use is truly shocking in its limitations, I\u2019m terrible at updating as it\u2019s just not my priority. I just don\u2019t know if I will ever feel comfortable with it.). I started to musically-direct the Sangstream Scots Folk Choir online, layering parts and teaching weekly on Zoom. I also started painting and drawing again after a long time. Which was an unexpected plus, as I ended up creating artwork which I used for my latest release The Song of Oak and Ivy. Allowing myself to \u2019not be perfect and going with it anyway\u2019 has been a steep learning curve, but I don\u2019t have any choice in this. A menopausal woman is a woman in flux. And oh jings, am I fluxing\u2026<\/p>\n
\nI wasn’t going to be a musician when I grew up, I was going to be an actor. I wanted to inhabit others\u2019 lives, I wanted to be allowed to feel and be in a way I felt I couldn\u2019t as a girl. And now I am older, I realise the connection – it was the expression of \u2018the body\u2019. I am fascinated by the workings of the body, the connection between gut – heart – mind. I am constantly researching to aid my own work with singers and the choir, so we are actively learning and supporting the body as we do it. And when we rest we can rest \u2018well\u2019 rather than just \u2018check out\u2019. Does that make sense? I use exercises to connect the right and left sides of the brain, to ensure we are present in the room, we have warmed up, we are using our ears, we have dual awareness. The power of the body to heal itself is truly inspiring. I have this feeling within nature as well, and love growing things, tending, mending, making. I want to be someone who allows folks inner voices to be heard.<\/p>\n
\nThe Oak and Ivy album needs to be heard and get out and about. I\u2019ll need to hire someone to help me as it\u2019s not going very far if I\u2019m the only one pushing it. Longer term ambitions are to actually get these vocal scores published somehow, plus publish the Song-leader book, plus the book of more trad-based tunes I\u2019ve written over the years, plus the new album from Dave Milligan and I which has been bubbling away in my head for a while. I would absolutely love to get The Unusual Suspects back together for one last tour-to-end-all tours! I do have a lot of singing plans, but I never seem to have the time to devote to myself. I\u2019ve just done some beautiful big sing shows with Karine Polwart, Pippa Murphy, Lori Watson and Stephen Deazley which were truly magical. I do love the mass sing as it\u2019s so great for everyone and I\u2019m hoping to do more in this vein. I\u2019ve always got big plans, huge ideas in my head, big music playing away, but I\u2019m constantly too busy to do them, filling my life with the little \u2018doable\u2019 things which feels okay for now. My daughter is nearing at the end of her schooling though, so I guess my longer term ambition is to listen to my needs more. We\u2019ll see how that goes.<\/p>\n