DISTIL 4 will take place at the Mill Hotel, New Lanark from the 25th - 28th March 2004.

Participants

Alistair Anderson (concertina, Northumbrian pipes)
My main interest is the traditional music of Northumberland and the borders. I spent a lot of time playing with older musicians notably Will Atkinson, Joe Hutton, Will Taylor. Inspired by them (Atkinson and Taylor were both composers in the tradition) I started writing trad. style/form pieces in early 70s. I gradually started adding written harmony lines usually as separate tunes that would work alongside main tune. This eventually led to my 1st extended piece, Steel Skies (1982) which I have followed with other pieces in a similar style. More recently I have written some work to include musicians whose background is other than traditional music e.g. On Cheviot Hills - concertina and string quartet (commissioned by The Lindsay Quartet) and Air Play, a joint commission with trombonist, Annie Whitehead.

Maggie MacInnes (clarsach, voice)
Maggie comes from a long line of Gaelic singers from Barra. She has been involved in various groups (including Ossian) and has worked with Theatre Companies such as 7: 84 and Theatre Alba. Her latest solo CD, 'Peaceful Ground' was just released in January,2004. She produced, directed and toured 'Burns and the Gaels' which looked at the links between the works of Robert Burns and Gaelic music and poetry and she was part of Celtic Connections' 'Scottish Women' project. For this year's Celtic Connections Maggie was commissioned for the 'New Voices' strand. Her piece 'A Woman's Song' was a combination of music and song inspired by the poetry and songs of women in the Gaelic tradition past and present.

Alistair McCulloch (fiddle)
Alistair plays with Coila and Canterach, and works as a session musician. He was for several year a soloist with the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra. Alistair is also the fiddler on Balamory on CBBC! In his work as a composer, a recent commission was a suite for Grant's, the distillers of Glenfiddich, and has published a book of his own compositions. He is musical director of the Ayrshire Fiddle Orchestra, and principal tutor at Glasgow Fiddle Workshop.

Sandy Stanage (guitar)
Sandy Stanage began his musical career with teenage pop and rock groups with his then school friend Midge Ure, before progressing to acoustic music and the folk scene. Sandy has recently devoted much of his time to guitar classes and workshop. He has also been working with folklorist and singer Margaret Bennett in a new Burns show - The Cottar's Saturday Night. Although he has made many recordings over the years, as a guitarist and musical arranger, his CD Crossing the Line is his first solo venture. He has just released his second album, as well as music/tablature books for both albums.

Anna Wendy Stevenson (fiddle)
Anna-Wendy studied violin at University in Texas. She has toured and recorded with many musicians including Anam, Calluna, Savourna Stevenson. Anna-Wendy is currently busy performing with her band Fine Friday and has just recorded an album with her grandfather Ronald, the celebrated Scottish composer, of his arrangements of traditional Scottish music. She is a highly sought after fiddle tutor, teaching for various courses and workshops including the University of the Highlands and Islands, and Lochgoil Fiddle Workshop where she is a principal tutor.

Wendy Stewart (harp, concertina)
Coming from a Scottish background but interested in many other traditions, Wendy has produced several solo and band (Ceolbeg) CDs plus harp music books. With the massive growth in interest in the Scottish harp, Wendy now teaches throughout the UK, in Germany, Italy and the US, plus runs the Clarsach degree course at the RSAMD in Glasgow.
e: wendy.stewart@phonecoop.coop

Mike Travis (percussion)
Based in London in the '60s and '70s, Mike toured and recorded with musicians including Japanese percussion legend Stomu Yamashta, and Soft Machine's Hugh Hopper. In the early '80s, Mike was introduced to musical theatre via his work with Wildcat. This paved the way for what was to be a twenty year association with Scotland's foremost theatre companies including the Royal Lyceum, Communicado and Bill Bryden's Promenade Productions with whom he worked on the famous productions, The Ship and The Big Picnic. In the '90s, he turned to his long-held interest in Celtic forms. He has toured and recorded with Savourna Stevenson, Clan Alba, The Cauld Blast Orchestra, Caledon, Billy Jackson and Ceolbeg. In Autumn '98 he was awarded a Scottish Arts Council grant to form "Uncharted Territory", an ensemble which brought together musicians from many different musical backgrounds to create new music influenced by jazz and Celtic forms.

Sarah Wilson (violin)
I studied at University of Strathclyde on the Applied Music course, specialising in composition and performance. I've been trained classically but always had a love for folk music. I play with Brolum, the seven piece folk band, made up of fellow graduates from the Applied Music course and two RSAMD students/graduates. I also play with Ultraviolet, a quartet consisting of four female graduates from Strathclyde who all compose for the group (violin, flute, clarinet, cello). I also work as an autism practitioner with the Scottish Society for Autism and have also taught music in an autistic school.

Workshop Leaders

Dave Heath has written concertos and other major works which have been performed worldwide for, among others, James Galway, Nigel Kennedy, Piers Lane, Julian Lloyd-Webber, Clio Gould, and Evelyn Glennie. As a virtuoso flautist he has worked with many orchestras as well as in the contemporary and pop fields, with performers including Sting, William Orbit and others. From 1993 - 1996 Heath was Composer in Residence with the BT Scottish Ensemble, work which included his violin concerto The Celtic. In 1997, Heath arranged, orchestrated and conducted The Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Aly Bain and Karen Matheson in Phil Cunningham's Celtic Orchestral extravaganza The Highlands And Islands Suite, a performance which opened the Glasgow Celtic Connection Festival. Future projects include Gottlieb a work for solo organ, and an opera, Everyday Occurrence, a love affair set in the pit of an orchestra.

Timo Alakotila works primarily in the thriving contemporary Finnish folk music scene but is also expanding steadily into other areas, for example jazz and classical. He was a founder member of JPP. He works with Helsinki Pop & Jazz Conservatory as teacher of composition and music theory while simultaneously holding a similar post at the Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department, teaching improvisation, arranging, harmonium and piano. Since 1994, Timo has also been pianist, composer and arranger Aldargaz, the ensemble of one of Finland's top contemporary accordionists, Maria Kalaniemi. He is also an arranger, notably for Finnish vocal band, Varttinaa. One of Timo's biggest projects is "Folkmoods West", an extended four part work for big band, string orchestra, guitars and accordion. Another recent project has been the band May Monday with accordionist Karen Tweed.

Paul Dunmall is noted for his involvement in free improvisation, but has performed in a wide range of jazz settings, and in folk-jazz styles with Danny Thompson's Whatever. He lived in the US for some years playing with musicians like Alice Coltrane and Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, before returning to the UK. He has been for many years a member of the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, an improvising big band. He is also a member of Mujician with Keith Tippett [a tutor on Distil 1], and works with bassist Paul Rogers in a duo folk project.