Mairi Campbell

Mairi lives in Edinburgh where she combines songwriting, teaching and live performance. Her version and voice of Auld Lang Syne was chosen for the blockbuster movie 'Sex and the City' 2008. She has also sung for President Clinton and Sean Connery and recently supported Joan Armatrading in Scotland. Awards: Tutor of the year 2012 - Scots Trad Music Awards Scots Singer of the Year - Scots Trad Music Awards Female Musician of the Year '08 - Liveireland: Composition of the Year'08 - Liveireland: ( Jean Yelland slow air) Burnsong winner for songwriting for song 'Smile or Cry'. Overall winner of Neil Gow competition for fiddle tune ' Norval Aitken' Performing In a freelance viola/fiddle capacity, she's been a session musician for many musicians' albums, played with McFalls Chamber, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, The Occasionals Dance Band and many others. She and Dave Francis have produced four albums and collaborated as a duo called 'The Cast'. Mairi offers her own unique soundings on occasion. These are elemental improvised 'free folk' encounters. Soundings have been known to happen here and there. She is offering solo concerts these days, working with voice, viola and piano. Songwriting Mairi and Dave Francis, her longterm collaborator and husband are songwriters. Their recent project, 'Revival and The Red Earth' is a show of stories and songs that mark the lives of Mairi's forebears. Mairi and Dave have written two musicals, produced 4 albums and are known as the duo 'The Cast'. Their scottsh dance band 'Bella McNabs" plays for dancing in and around Edinburgh. All enquiries welcome. 07988894334 Teaching: In 2007 Mairi founded her own fiddle school on the island of Lismore, Argyll, where she hosts 8 weekend courses each year for any level of fiddler keen to develop their playing. She also has voice weekends too and is currently developing cross-genre work including stepping and movement. www.lismoremusicretreats.com She is currently training and exploring the improvisational art form called 'Interplay' Since 2003 Mairi has been musical director of Sangstream, a folk choir based in Edinburgh. ''One of the greatest sounds in Scottish folk music today'' ''Her voice can stop the clock' Jim Gilchrist - Scotsman. ''Mairi Campbell’s soundings are like the voice of the earth. It is as if they come from between the heart and some place of primal instinct. Beautiful, haunting, sexual, they give a whole new meaning to mouth music. The combination of the urgent-rhythm fiddle and the other-worldly soaring vocals is a powerful and elemental concoction that I have not heard before'. Simon Jaquet, Fiddle teaching, soundings, Interplay, free folk, singing, dancing, roots and shoots....throw it in the pot and see what happens!!