MAIN MUSIC PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED

Above pic: Clare Sands

This year’s festival programme includes a fantastic line-up of live music at the Traverse and various venues across Edinburgh.

Opening the Festival on Friday 3 April at the Queen’s Hall is VALTOS which has taken the trad and electronic music world by storm. The band led by Daniel Docherty and Martyn MacDonald will be joined by award-winning singer/songwriter Josie Duncan and more special guests to be announced.

Over the 11 days of the Festival there will be live music and workshops involving more than 100 musicians, including velvet harmonies from fresh new electro-trad band Birdvox (Inge Thomson, Charlotte Printer, Jenny Sturgeon, Sarah Hayes); Triptic formed from three members of Moishe’s Bagel (Greg Lawson, Phil Alexander and Mario Caribe), Canada’s finest fiddle quartet The Fretless joined by award-winning folk singer-songwriter Madeleine Roger; Scandi-fiddlers Nordic Fiddlers Bloc (Olav Luksengård Mjelva, Kevin Henderson and Anders Hall); Gaelic supergroup Dàimh; multi-award winning acoustic and slide guitar master Martin Simpson; raucous fiddle folk duo Lena Jonsson from Northern Sweden and Brittany Haas from Northern California; and, one of Scotland’s best loved traditional music stars Julie Fowlis who will play at the festival’s closing concert in the Assembly Rooms with special guests Laura Wilkie and Ian Carr.

There will also be soloists and new emerging musicians performing every night in Traverse 2 including LA-based singer-songwriter Alice Howe (appearing with Freebo), multi-award-winning singer/harpist/composer Rachel Newton; electrofolk fiddle player Frankie Archer who won the 2023 Christian Raphael Prize and has featured on Later…With Jools Holland; piper Malin Lewis; jazz-crossover folk duo Norman&Corrie; Simon Bradley Trio (Simon Bradley, Anna-Wendy Stevenson, Michael Bryan); virtuoso musicians Simon Thoumire and Dave Milligan; Irish fiddler and bilingual singer Clare Sands; and BBC Radio Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician of the Year finalist 2024 Evie Waddell.

This year’s special commission is Everyone’s Welcome to Edinburgh curated and arranged by award-winning fiddler Robbie Greig, with new and old tunes, and songs hailing from the capital city. Robbie will be joined for the gig by some of the most talented musicians in Scotland – Ciaran Ryan, Duncan Lyall, Hannah Rarity, Jenn Butterworth, and Signy Jakobsdottir.

Returning in 2024 is the festival’s popular Rebellious Truth lecture presented in collaboration with Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. This year it will feature a talk and performance by legendary folk musician and broadcaster Archie Fisher which will be in-person and live-streamed. Also returning is the ETF Spotlight showcasing four of the most exciting new artists emerging in folk and traditional music today – Scots song and tunes trio ELÍR, clarinet and accordion duo  Anna Scott and Ciorstaidh Chaimbeul from the Isle of Skye, the freshly formed folk trio Beatha (Iona Reid, Cam Lawson and Kenneth MacFarlane), and virtuoso solo guitarist Miguel Girão. And, finally Hands Up For Trad’s very own #WorldPlayAStrathspeyDay annual concert is back on Saturday 4 May, the day when people all around the world are invited to record, video and upload themselves playing a strathspey to social media.

Douglas Robertson and Jane-Ann Purdy, co-producers of Edinburgh Tradfest said: “Every year we spend the run up to Edinburgh Tradfest searching for the very best traditional musicians from across Scotland, across the world and across the generations. There is such a wealth of talent out there. We hope you will find some of your favourite artists represented and some future favourites to try. We can’t wait to share this year’s festival with you.”

The full programme for this year’s Edinburgh Tradfest including events at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, the Folk Film Festival, and the Edinburgh Folk Club will be launched on Wednesday 13 March and will include an unmissable line-up of talks, adult and children’s music workshops, ceilidhs, films, and storytelling thanks to continued support from The National Lottery through Creative Scotland, and the William Grant Foundation.