Julie Fowlis

From North Uist in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, Julie Fowlis is just about the most successful artist ever to function predominantly with Scots Gaelic materials with some high-profile fans, including Björk, Ricky Gervais, and Phil Selway of Radiohead. While Runrig and Capercaillie acquired previously attained breakthroughs of kinds with isolated outbreaks of Gaelic-language materials, Fowlis threw extreme care to the blowing wind and achieved astonishing mainstream acceptance focusing almost solely in the Gaelic custom. Being elevated in the Gaelic community from the Traditional western Isles provided Fowlis a solid sense of identification and custom, and she completely ingested the area’s solid singing, dance, and piping customs. Her grandmother was named a fine vocalist, her mother’s family members had been all Gaelic audio speakers, and Julie herself initial started performing Gaelic traditional music at primary college, later taking on oboe and pipes. She transferred to the mainland to review music at Strathclyde School in Glasgow and following that went on towards the Isle of Skye, where she analyzed Gaelic in the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig learning college. There she fulfilled Skye clarsach (Scottish harp) participant Eilidh MacLeod, an associate of the music group Dòchas, and in 2000 Fowlis changed Rachel Walker in the music group, producing her debut with them on the Television show about Gaelic music. They toured thoroughly over another year or two, releasing two appealing, full of energy, and well-received albums blending Scots and Irish music, Dòchas and An Darna Umhail. Fowlis was known mainly as an instrumentalist, specializing in the whistle, fiddle, and oboe, however in 2004 she gained the pan-Celtic sean-nós performing competition in Tralee, Ireland, and was also nominated as Greatest Gaelic Singer on the Scottish Traditional Music Honours. In 2005 she released her initial solo record, Mar a Tha Mo Chridhe (As My Center Is), partially funded with the Scottish Arts Council, solely featuring Gaelic materials, mostly collected in the home on Uist. Supported by music artists of the grade of John McCusker, Eamonn Doorley, John Doyle, Kris Drever, and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, it produced an immediate influence, earning her a Horizon nomination on the BBC Folk Honours.