New list honours 12 influential women in Scottish culture
◆ Eddi Reader, Cora Bissett and Sheena Wellington among those to win official recognition for contributions to sector
Singers, musicians, poets, composers, festival organisers, broadcasters and theatremakers have been named in a new list aimed at recognising some of the most influential women working in Scottish culture.
A new campaign to “platform the work, voices and role of women” has highlighted a dozen figures for their contributions. The Women in Music and Culture List is described as a “snapshot of the many women doing amazing work in the sector”.
It includes the Glasgow-born multi Brit Award winner Eddi Reader, who has been performingfor more than 40 years since starting out as a backing singer for Eurythmics and Gang of Four, and the Dundonian folk singer she en a wellington, who famously sang at the opening of the Scottish Parliament 25 years ago this summer.
The list, which has been published in conjunction with International Women’s Day on March 8, features Belize-born composer and musician Errollyn Wallen, who moved to London at the age of two and now lives in a lighthouse in the far north of Scotland, overlooking Orkney. She is a visiting professor of composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow.
Other musicians being championedinclude shetland fiddler and composerjenn are id, who has just written her first children’s book, and Arran fiddler Gillian Frame, the inaugural winner of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition.
Fife-born Cora Bissett has been recognised for her career as a singer, musician, actor and theatre maker.
She previously worked on a stage show inspired by the ground-breaking musician Martyn Bennett, a musical adaptation of the feature film Orphans, and a play about the American rock singer Janis Joplin. Shed re won her experiences with the 1990 sin die-rock band Darlingheart for her autobiographical stage show What Girls Are Made Of.
Les ley shaw, manager of glasgow’ s long-running Celtic Connections festival, which has been running for 30 years, is also recognised.
Bissett said: “It’s lovely to be featured as a woman contributing to Scottish culture. Much of the stories I dramatise are about shining a light on and celebrating real life inspirational women and marginalised people. Women still face myriad challenges to surviving in the arts. Things are changing gradually, but it’s important to keep raising the profile and achievements of the brilliant women creating, performing and busting boundaries and expectations.”
Shaw said: “Scotland is a country with a rich cultural heritage, and I feel extremely proud to be able to work in an industry with so many inspiring women in a wide range of cultural roles, where we can highlight and showcase the brilliant music that we have, to the world.
“There are more women working across the sector than when I started my career and it’s exciting to see how that representationhas grown. however, just as there’ s always room for more music, there’s always room for more women in music and culture.”
The list has been compiled by
Just as there’s always room for more music, there’s always room for more women in music and culture
the organisers of the Scots Language Awards, World Gaelic Week. the Scots Trad Music Awards and the BBC Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award.
Margaret Cameron, director of content at gaelic broadcast er MG Alba, Glaswegian performance poet Victoria Mcnulty and Lochaber-based Gaelic singer and tutor Rachel Walker, who has performed with the bands Skipinnish and Cruinn, have all made the list.
Walker has been recognised less than two years after releasing an album, with singer and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Jones, which celebrated “under-recognised women throughout Scottish history”, including Eilidh Macdougall, the first dedicated police commissioner for women at the Met. Others celebrated are the Great Gormula of Moy, a powerful Highland “witch” said to have resolved clan disputes, medical pioneer Elsie Inglis, Glaswegian-ghanaian artist Maud Sulter, and campaigners for women’s suffrage and the abolition against slavery.
Also included on the list are singer, musician and lecturer Lori Watson, the first doctor of artistic research in Scottish music, and Anna-wendy Stevenson, a fiddler and composer, who is also senior lecturer and programme leader for the applied music degree at the University of the highlands and Islands.
Stevenson said: “I am proud to celebrate and promote women’ s contributions in my role as an educational leader, facilitator and artist myself.
“In Scotland we have so many women to recognise for their impact on the culture and well being of society, from Margaret fay shaw, a pioneering scottish-america ne th no musicologist, photographer, folklorist, and scholar of Celtic studies, to Elsie Inglis, founder of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals.”
Watson, who grew up in the Scottish Borders, said: “I want centuries rather than decades of numerous visible, connected and empowered women to reflect on. I hope future generations have that.”
Simon Thoumire, founder of Hands Up For Trad, the promoters and event organisers who have instigated the Women in Music and Culture List, said: “We’ve chosen 12 women who have and are contributing towards scotland’ s rich cultural landscape. We aim to recognise the wealth of talent and diversity they all bring through their work. These 12 women are, of course, just a snapshot of all the many women doing amazing work in our sector.”