{"id":26868,"date":"2026-03-08T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/?p=26868"},"modified":"2026-03-03T12:26:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T12:26:58","slug":"hands-up-for-trads-women-in-music-and-culture-2026-kathleen-cronie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/hands-up-for-trads-women-in-music-and-culture-2026-kathleen-cronie\/","title":{"rendered":"Hands Up for Trad’s Women in Music and Culture 2026: Kathleen Cronie"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Kathleen<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Hands Up for Trad\u2019s Women in Music and Culture 2026 list has been announced to celebrate just some of the women working in Scotland.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched as part of International Women\u2019s Day 2026<\/a>, we shine the spotlight on 12 women who all contribute towards Scotland\u2019s cultural landscape through their work. Read the 2026 list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We asked Kathleen Cronie<\/strong> to tell us more about their work, influences and ambitions for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you first get involved in the arts and who were your early influences?<\/strong>
I started singing when I was 5 years old, and competed in the local M\u00f2d on Skye. I\u2019d clearly caught the performance bug as I persuaded my family to take me to sing at M\u00f2ds across Scotland every year, and I also took part in F\u00e8isean in North Uist every summer holiday throughout my childhood. At that point I thought everyone did this \u2013 I had no idea that other kids weren\u2019t spending their holidays learning concerts of Gaelic song!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took voice lessons throughout my teens but as I reached university I didn\u2019t yet have the confidence to pursue music as a career, and chose languages instead. I couldn\u2019t quite leave the music world behind though and was pulled back in through conducting a Gaelic choir and taking part in Gilbert and Sullivan shows, choral societies, music theatre shows \u2013 really any group that would have me. In hindsight I was really spending more of my time performing rather than studying\u2026 Later I moved to London to retrain as an opera singer but the more I studied and the more auditions I endured, the more I felt that this was quite a lonely and stressful route to take. A casual comment from a friend one day reminding me that they\u2019d really enjoyed a singing group I\u2019d conducted really struck me, and I realised that the cure for musical loneliness was to find a role that couldn\u2019t function without other singers in the room \u2013 conducting was really where my joy was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess then that my influences have always been fairly varied, from local Gaelic singers, to musical theatre performers, to opera stars, and the teachers that have supported me to sing in such a wide variety of genres over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\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>
Depending on how you look at it, I was lucky or perhaps unlucky to be completing my PhD on choral singing during the COVID pandemic. Choirs couldn\u2019t meet in-person, and singing was deemed too dangerous to be shared. Instead though, what I saw in my work was singers coming together online, sharing spaces and singing to each other in what became a new type of singing group \u2013 not a choir, but a group of people connecting through a shared need to communicate musically. This made me realise that my previous work which had more of a performance-focused approach was no longer what I felt was important, and brought me to focus more on what it is that brings folks together to sing. Turning then to work in community music was an easy choice. Since then, every project I\u2019ve developed has focused on nurturing the experience for the people taking part \u2013 why is it that they\u2019ve chosen to join this choir, or to take part in this project, as opposed to any other? This has led to such a strong focus on inclusion and listening to singers, that my practice now centres around this and my professional identity has really solidified in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My interest now then is finding a space for authentic vocal expression for every singer. I\u2019ve learned so much from menopausal singers about the emotional impact of vocal change on their lives, and this hammered home the importance of focusing on the relationship between voice and person, not person and product. In a similar vein, supporting trans people during their vocal transition has made me reflect on the wonderful possibilities of voice work \u2013 the range of possibilities in one person\u2019s voice that aren\u2019t always explored to their fullest. It\u2019s also reaffirmed the importance of owning your voice and being able to express what you feel, want, and need to others with a voice that serves you authentically. Ultimately this makes the experience better for everyone involved. I don\u2019t want anyone to think that a focus on individual singer-centred work or on inclusion is a niche, specialist endeavour. Instead, reflecting on ways to support singers has opened up my work to new projects and practices to share. My practice is thriving and I\u2019m busier and more fulfilled than I\u2019d envisioned being!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who or what interests you creatively?<\/strong>
My absolute favourite thing to do is to find ways of fusing styles and influences together in new ways. This could be rearranging traditional songs with modern interpretations, scoring string quartets for a cappella singers, or introducing new genres to singers that they\u2019ve never attempted before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a singing teacher, I feel strongly about breaking down the impression that songs need to be performed only in fixed ways, and helping students give themselves permission to sing new types of music. I hope that I give them the historical knowledge, and vocal skills to approach the repertoire with confidence and to appreciate the traditions such as opera or folk that we sing, but without prescribing one single \u2018right way\u2019 to sing to be considered performing these songs \u2018properly\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are your plans for the next year or so and\/or what are your longer term creative ambitions?<\/strong>
I think that, at the moment there\u2019s a real lack of support for menopausal singers in Scotland. I\u2019ve started compiling resources to help support through menopausal voice change but so many folks are experiencing this transition without knowing that vocal change is happening to so many singers around them at the same time. In the short term I\u2019m delivering workshops and support sessions for voice users in choirs and workplaces and later this year I\u2019ll be starting a Singing Through Menopause group. Longer-term I\u2019d like to offer training for other song leaders to run these groups so that we can support singers across Scotland and the UK more widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also want to bring the Scottish queer choral scene closer together. There are so many wonderful queer singers and groups – long term I\u2019d love to see a queer choral festival here in Scotland, celebrating the community with a day of queer joy, song and performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find out more about Kathleen Cronie here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the Hands Up for Trad\u2019s Women in Music and Culture 2026 List<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hands Up for Trad\u2019s Women in Music and Culture 2026 list has been announced to celebrate just some of the women working in Scotland.   Launched as part of International Women\u2019s Day 2026, we shine the spotlight on 12 women who all contribute towards Scotland\u2019s cultural landscape through their work. Read the 2026 list here. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2026\/02\/Kathleen-Cronie.jpg","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2026\/02\/Kathleen-Cronie-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/files\/2026\/02\/Kathleen-Cronie-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"simon","author_link":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/author\/simon\/"},"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcv15g-6Zm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26868"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26975,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26868\/revisions\/26975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}