2010 SPAE Artists Biographies
Brian
McNeill, First Head 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 the 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.brianmcneil.co.uk
Caroline Pugh brings her refreshing, offbeat songs
to audiences around
the UK and the USA. She combines her musical skill and knowledge of
folklore with natural sensitivity and humour to captivate audiences.
Combining new composition, improvisation, folklore and traditional
song, Caroline's voice is equally at home in a folk club, art
gallery or theatre. She also works in residence, leads workshops and
col-laborates with visual and perform-ance artists. She is working
on a Master of Music in folk song and improvisation from Newcastle
University with funding from the prestigious Arts and Humanities
Re-search Council, and her first degree was in Scottish Music from
the RSAMD. She teaches voice perform-ance courses at Queens
University Belfast and North-umbria University in the UK.
www.myspace.com/carolinepugh
Sara
Ann Dawodu comes from Auchmithie, Scotland. She gradu-ated
from the RSAMD with High-est Honors in June, 2008. this will be her
third year to teach in St. Louis. She has also taught in the UK,
Denmark, Germany and Canada. She is a free-lance fiddler in Scotland
and plays regularly in the duo A Little Bit of Somethin (with
Heather Downie), The Shed Inspectors, The Ballachulish Hellhounds,
and with Brian McNeill and Dominique Dodge. She is equally
comfortable in Scottish traditional music and American folk music
such as blue-grass and old time. While still at the RSAMD, she spent
a semester at East Tennessee Un. studying these genre. She has been
influenced by many music genres, plays fiddle, piano and banjo and
sings and composes. At 23 she is one of the up and coming Scottish
talents in tradi-tional music.
www.myspace.com/SaraAnnCull
Dominique
Dodge is a harper and singer from northern New Hampshire.
Dominique has been singing for as long as she can remem-ber and she
expresses songs from the Scots, Gaelic, and Appalachian traditions
with depth and clarity. In 2005, Dominique earned a BA First Class
Honours Degree in Scottish Music from the RSAMD. She has performed
in the USA, UK, Denmark as well as for HRH the Prince of Wales and
at the opening of the Scottish Parlia-ment Building. She released a
solo album in 2006 featuring Gaelic and Scots songs and rhythmic
dance tunes from Scotland and Cape Breton as well as a few of her
own composi-tions. She has taught for the Ohio Scottish Arts School,
the NH School of Scottish Arts, and the Gaelic College in Nova
Scotia.
www.dominiquedodge.net
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 per-formance.
Ed is one of the most popular folk artists on the Highland Games
circuit in North Amer-ica. He hosts a folk music program “Folkways”
on Na-tional Public Radio station, KUT-FM, Austin, TX and has
recorded extensively. Ed is an instruc-tor at Swannanoa Gathering
Summer School, Warren Wil-son College, N. Carolina; Rocky Mountain
Fid-dle Camp CO; and Alasdair Fraser's Valley of the Moon Fiddle
Camp, CA.
www.songsofscotland.com
