Congratulations to Jen Anderson (The Bothy Society) who has been nominated in Industry Person of the Year sponsored by An Aird Aird Events in the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2026. Vote for Jen now! It’s going to be another great night at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards on Saturday 5th December in Paisley Arena, Lagoon Centre. Why not join us for a brilliant night of music and awards. Buy a ticket here.
We asked Jen of Jen Anderson (The Bothy Society) the following questions.
Tell us about yourself
I’m Jen Anderson, founder and director of The Bothy Society, a Glasgow-based company I set up in March 2020 to work with contemporary Scottish and Irish traditional musicians, built on transparency, fairness, equality and innovation. It started as artist management and has grown into live booking, a record label, publishing and sync, so we can now support an artist across most of their career under one roof.
Our management roster is Valtos, Moxie, HEISK, An Dannsa Dub, Limonead and Dara Dubh. We also book live for acts including Beluga Lagoon, Shooglenifty, Project Smok, Dlù and Face The West, release music on the label for artists like Findlay Napier, and look after publishing for Beluga Lagoon and Shooglenifty. Alongside that, we’ve built a sync catalogue of Scottish, Irish and Welsh music for film, TV, games and advertising.
Before The Bothy Society, I spent around 15 years working in music in Glasgow and London as a promoter, A&R, manager and tour manager within DF Concerts and Universal Music. Alongside the company, I am a senior lecturer at pointblank music school, and I sit on the SMIA and TRACS boards. Until this year, I served as Chair and a trustee of The BIT Collective.
Any particular career highlights?
– At DF Concerts I set up King Tut’s Summer Nights and ran King Tut’s Recordings. I feel fortunate to have been given the freedom to build something like that, and to work with some brilliant Scottish bands when they were just starting out.
– I was lucky to be asked to join Fiction Records (Universal) as an A&R at 23. I’d listened to their catalogue all through my late teens, so I was grateful to learn from the people behind those records.
– Being Chair of The BIT Collective has meant a great deal to me. The team and the board care so much about making traditional music safer and fairer for the people working in it, and I was glad to help secure their most recent funding.
– Andrew O’Donnell (Beluga Lagoon) trusted us with his songs as our first publishing writer. When larger publishers offered to take his whole catalogue, we decided together to keep it with him and only did an administration deal with Sony Music Publishing for “The Glen” and its remix, so that more of the income stays with Andrew and in Scotland. Being able to say no to the big publishers felt like a full-circle moment, and I’m grateful to Andrew for that opportunity!
– The biggest moment so far was probably being the manager, booking agent and promoter on the Valtos album launch at the Barrowland in April 2026. I’ve worked with Dan and Martyn since their second gig, so seeing all of those people singing along was a night I won’t forget. I never got to promote my own Barrowland show while I was at DF Concerts, so it was something I’d always wanted to do.
– When Valtos played the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, and we wanted to use it to share musical traditions and languages that were suppressed under colonisation. I spent a long time researching and finding the musicians who carry those traditions, in Scotland with roots in Wales, Ireland, the Caribbean and South Asia, and in Aotearoa, where artists recorded taonga pūoro and haka. Working with all of them was incredible, and Gareth Bellamy, a former pointblank student of mine, produced the recordings in Aotearoa, so it was lovely to finally work together.
– Limonead’s first ever show, at Belladrum in August 2026. Seeing her perform for the first time to a packed tent was incredible, and every show since has been the same.
– The Bothy Society has grown a lot this year. I took on Ailsa Harper as our Operations and Marketing Manager and brought live booking back into the company. I loved my years at Apex Music International, and I’m very grateful to Leila, Daniel and Martin for everything they taught me and for supporting me.
What are your plans for the future?
I want to keep building The Bothy Society around the artists we work with, so they can make a living from their music over the long term and not just from one release or tour to the next.
A big part of that is publishing and sync. A lot of traditional music, and Gaelic song in particular, has never been registered or published, so the people who write it often don’t get paid when it’s played or used. I’d like to help more writers in Scotland and Ireland get their songs registered, whether that’s through us or just by helping them do it themselves. I’d also like to get more traditional and folk music used in film, TV, adverts and games, so that more of our culture and language can be heard around the world and the money goes back to the artists and to the countries the music comes from.
I want to keep growing live opportunities for the artists we work with, and for others in the scene, particularly internationally. I’m focused on building connections across Europe, America and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and in Asia, including China and Japan, so that more traditional musicians can take their music to new audiences.
Jen Anderson (The Bothy Society) Social Media
Website: https://www.thebothysociety.com/
Facebook: @thebothysociety
Instagram: @thebothysociety
The 2026 MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards are on the 5th December 2025 in Paisley Arena, Lagoon Centre! You will be able to watch it live in person (buy a ticket here).
Hosted by Scottish personalities Alistair Heather and Mary Ann Kennedy, the night will welcome live performances from some of the brightest lights on the thriving trad scene today including Valtos, Gnoss, Sian, Fèis Phaislig, Spodo Komodo and BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician and Scots Performer o the Year Rachel Groves and many more!
If you would like to support Hands Up for Trad in their work with Scottish trad music and musicians why not become a friend of Hands Up for Trad. In addition to our high profile events like the Scots Trad Music Awards, we also deliver a less well known, education programme for young people from 8yrs right through to young adults at the start of their careers. Read more here.