2008 SPAE Artists Biographies
Brian McNeill,
Founder of the Scottish Music Program at the Royal Scottish Academy
of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland, is a virtuoso on fiddle,
viola, mandolin, cittern, bouzouki, guitar, bass, concertina, and
hurdy-gurdy, and the importance of his songwriting has long been
recognized. Brian was a
founder of the Battlefield Band in 1969, one of Scotland’s best
known folk ensembles.
He has numerous recordings both solo and with other leading Scottish
traditional musicians.
The curriculum he set up at RSAMD
teaches as well as guides the students to be full-time
professionals in the art of Scottish traditional music.
www.brianmcneill.co.uk
Ed
Miller
holds a Ph.D. in Folklore from the
University of Texas. He
is one of the finest singers to come out of the Scottish Folk
Revival and brings his love of Scotland to every performance.
Ed is one of the most popular folk artists on the Highland
Games circuit in North America.
He hosts a folk music program “Folkways” on National Public
Radio station, KUT-FM, Austin, TX and has recorded extensively.
Ed is an instructor at Swannanoa Gathering Summer School,
Warren Wilson College, N. Carolina; Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp CO;
and Alasdair Fraser’s Valley of the Moon Fiddle Camp, CA.
www.songsofscotland.com
Caroline
Pugh
performs, writes and teaches traditional music both in Scotland and
the USA. She
graduated with honors from the Royal Scottish Academy of
Music and Drama in June 2007.
She is a vocalist with a wide repertoire of Scots songs and
also plays historic harp from Scotland and Wales.
In addition to traditional music, her abilities include
interdisciplinary performance, experimental music and musical
director for theatre.
Her main areas of interest are folk influences in contemporary music
and the role communities play in creating music that reflects their
location.
Sara
Ann Cull - bio coming soon.
Jim
Malcolm,
raised in Pethshire and Angus in Scotland, is recorded on Greentrax,
Linn Records, and Beltane Records and has appeared on Scottish radio
and television broadcasts and at all of the major folk festivals in
Scotland. He has toured
extensively in the US, UK, Germany, Canada, Denmark and Ireland both
as a solo artist and with Old Blind Dogs.
The Scots Traditional Music Society awarded him the
Songwriter of the Year Award in 2004, the same year they awarded Old
Blind Dogs the Scottish Folk Band of the Year Award—Jim was still
the lead singer at that time.
www.jimmalcolm.com
Willie
Ruff
is the hornist and bassist of the Mitchell-Ruff Duo featuring Dwike
Mitchell. The Duo
records, performs and lectures on jazz extensively in the US, Asia,
Africa and Europe.
Ruff, a Yale music faculty member since 1971, is founding Director
of the Duke Ellington Fellowship Program at Yale, a community based
organization sponsoring world-class artists mentoring and performing
with Yale students and young musicians from the New Haven Public
School System. Ruff’s
1992 memoir, “A Call to Assembly” was awarded the Deems Taylor ASCAP
award. He has written
widely on Paul Hindemith, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
At Yale in April, 2007, Ruff hosted the Second International
Conference on Line-singing, a centuries-old a cappella form of
congregational church singing still sung by far-flung congregations
from the Scottish Hebrides (Gaelic Psalm Singing) to
African-American congregations in the Deep South, to remote churches
in Appalachia and the Indian Territory of Oklahoma.
These connections will be his focus in St. Louis.
www.willieruff.com.
