A slipjig for my friend Annabelle Bugay, a stepdancer and pianist from Virginia, USA who studied at Cape Breton University with me when I lived there for 4 months in 2019. We went to many sessions, house parties and concerts together. This tune is on my debut album The Castalia, featuring Annabelle stepdancing.
Composer website: https://www.islaratcliff.com
Link to audio of music: https://islaratcliff.bandcamp.com/track/tune-for-annabelle
Isla Ratcliff is a Scottish fiddle player, singer and composer from Edinburgh, with a background in classical violin and piano. She has a deep interest in tradition, cultural politics, the environment, and music’s positive impact on our wellbeing. Her debut album The Castalia features traditional and self-composed tunes inspired by the 4 months that she spent in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 2019, including a trip to New Brunswick to meet her distant relatives. Her album expresses her love for the tradition, its ethos of community, and the power of music to bring people together.
Isla was a Semi-Finalist in the BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2022 competition. She has performed at Celtic Connections, Cambridge Folk Festival, Sidmouth FolkWeek, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the BBC Proms. She graduated with an MMus Scottish Music degree from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2020, and with a BA Music degree from Oxford University in 2017. Aged 13, she played a trad duet with Nicola Benedetti in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.
If you would like to contact the composer – you can email them here.