Julie to Perform in Germany & Switzerland.

We are delighted to confirm that Julie is to play 3 concert dates in central Europe in November this year, with 2 long awaited dates in Germany and one in Switzerland.

Details of one of the German concerts have now been released and tickets are now on sale; and we can confirm that Julie will be performing at the Kulturhaus Ludenscheid, in Ludenscheid, Germany on Saturday 24 November 2012.   Full details and ticket sales are available from the venue’s website: http://www.kulturhaus-luedenscheid.de and/or the  Box Office: 0049 (0)2351 171299 or by e-mail: folkpack@t-online.de

 Full details of the other two dates, venues, ticket sales, etc, will be announced in due course but meantime, Julie is very much looking forward to performing in both Germany and Switzerland in November.

Julie Contributes to Languages Today Magazine!

The Association for Language Learning, the major UK association for teachers of foreign languages, publishes a magazine called ‘Languages Today’ which is distributed to around 5,000 teachers of languages across Britain.

Julie was delighted to be invited to contribute to the May 2012 publication which is a ‘music special’ issue; where it reports on some of the work currently being done in schools to combine music and language learning. For this special issue, people involved in the music industry were invited to answer questions about their own capability in languages and their views on languages and language learning.

Julie's answers included the following:

1.Name?  Julie Fowlis

2. Job?   Seinneadair/neach-ciùil (singer/musician)

3. Country?   Alba (Scotland)

4. What languages do you speak?   Gàidhlig, Beurla agus tha beagan Gaeilge is Spàinntis agam cuideachd. (Gaelic, English and I speak a little Irish and Spanish also)

5. What difference have language skills made to your life?   Tha mi air cothroman air leth fhaighinn air sgàth na Gàidhlig!   (I have had incredible opportunities as a direct result of having Gaelic!).

Julie at Dougie MacLean's 'Perthshire Amber' Festival

Julie Delighted at 'Artist in Residence' Appointment!

In an exciting new development, Julie and fellow Scots singer, Chris Wright, have been appointed as artists in residence for the Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches website. The two musicians will act as ambassadors for the oral archive project within the arts, community and education sectors and will also look for potential collaborations with other traditional artists.   

On hearing of this exciting appointment, Julie said "I have been using the Tobar an Dualchais website to research songs and know what an amazing resource it is for singers and musicians. I'm delighted to be an ambassador for the project and look forward to working with Chris and the rest of the staff. I'm particularly excited about the opportunity to work with other performers and projects to showcase the website."

Scots artist in residency Chris Wright, comes from Dundee and has been singing songs from the Scots tradition since his teens. He has worked for the Kist o Riches project as a cataloguer of Scots songs and has himself collected songs from his native area. One of his main interests is in the interplay between the oral tradition and print, and his work for Kist o Riches feeds directly into his research. Chris recently founded The World's Room/Seòmar an t-Saoghail traditional singing club in Edinburgh, which aims to celebrate the Scots, English and Gaelic song traditions together.

He commented, "This residency represents a fantastic opportunity to promote the wonderful resource and store of culture that is the Kist o Riches, and also to bring these recordings full circle by getting them back to the communities where they were collected. I'm particularly excited to highlight some of the less well known items in the archives, some of which have lain undisturbed since they were first recorded. One of my favourite traditional songs comes from less than a mile away from my childhood home - a hundred metres in fact. When I began working for the Kist o Riches, I came across two more songs from less than a mile away and I'd like to help other people discover the rich singing traditions right on their doorsteps."

Mairead MacDonald, Director of Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches said: "Funding from Creative Scotland has enabled us to offer these residences for the first time and it is a very exciting development for us. Chris and Julie are highly-respected traditional musicians and we are delighted that they will be working with us. We anticipate the development of some very creative projects on the Gaelic and Scots side and also some collaborative work between the two. The residencies will also give Chris and Julie a chance to further develop their knowledge of the website and we envisage that this might also lead to some enhancement of the site. We are also hoping that work undertaken during the residencies might lead to some longer-term projects."

The posts will run to the end of 2012 on a part-time basis and you can check out the website itself at:   http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk