Julie Fowlis

Nobody has taken Scots Gaelic music and song further than Julie Fowlis, from the Outer Hebridean island of North Uist off the north west coast of Scotland. Also a radio presenter, Fowlis's gentle delivery and charming presentation has made the island's evocative ancient traditional music and song palatable to a wider world and she even reached the fringes of the UK charts with her Gaelic language version of The Beatles' Blackbird; originally recorded for a Mojo magazine re-make of The Beatles "White" album. Raised among the traditional music community of North Uist, Fowlis is also an accomplished bagpipe and whistle player, first achieving wider attention in the traditional group Dochas. She went on to release her first solo album Mar A Tha Mo Chridhe (As My Heart Is) in 2005 and won surprise success in the rest of Britain and Europe in 2007 with her second album Cuilidh - comprised entirely of material from North Uist. Fowlis has continued to concentrate almost exclusively on Gaelic language material with the albums Uam (2009) and Live At Perthshire Amber (2011) touring regularly in a band that includes her husband Eamon Doorley (of Danu). She also recorded a duet album with Irish singer Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh and her profile was raised again in 2012 when her music was featured in the movie Brave. In 2012 she co-presented the BBC Folk Awards with Mike Harding, while continuing to front radio shows for Radio Alba and Radio Scotland.