Distil 7 will take place from 20th - 23rd October, 2005 in New Lanark.

Participants

Charlotte Petersen
Charlotte is one of Scotland’s most talented composers and arrangers of traditional music for the clarsach. She studied clarsach with Savourna Stevenson before taking her degree in harp performance at the RSAMD. Her fine compositions have delighted audiences from Stornoway to Switzerland and have been recorded by the BBC as soundtracks for several radio plays. Together with harpist Catriona McKay, Charlotte has published the first four in a series of books containing their own arrangements for clarsach, and her current project is a book of her own compositions. Charlotte’s warm stage presence and skilful communication have made her a sought after performer for prestigious events and a very popular teacher both in Scotland and abroad. http://www.calluna.musicscotland.com/charlotte.htm

Inge Thompson
Inge Thomson has recently joined The Karine Polwart Band and look set to be touring world-wide this year, being just back from Oman and preparing to go to Armenia imminently. Inge has become the latest guest singer with esteemed Danish duo ‘Fromseier-Rose’, who are touring Scotland in April and Denmark in the Autumn. You can also catch her touring with Harem Scarem. http://www.haremscarem.co.uk/

Anna Wendy Stevenson
Anna-Wendy's distinctive sound is a product of classical expertise and traditional passion. These two strengths have opened many doors to Anna-Wendy both as an orchestral leader and as an internationally traveled ‘fiddler'. Her early family surroundings were exceptionally musical, embuing Anna-Wendy with a broad perspective and love of the arts. She is the third generation in a line of composer/performer, from her grandfather Ronald Stevenson through Savourna Stevenson to Anna-Wendy herself. http://www.annawendy.com/

Conrad Molleson
Conrad is a video artist & musician from Edinburgh. He played bass in Shooglenifty and Swamptrash before leaving to do a music degree at Edinburgh University.

Mattie Foulds
Mattie is originally from Cape Breton and has now settled in Scotland. Whilst in Cape Breton he was one of the leading session musicians as well as touring with Beolach. He is now touring and producing with the Karine Polwart Band.

Alasdair White
Alasdair comes from the Island of Lewis, one of the Gaelic speaking Outer Hebrides where music and culture remain strong daily forces. Alasdair has been an award-winning fiddler since he emerged at age thirteen. The Scotsman praised him as a “13 year-old maestro of the Highland fiddle playing surging strathspeys and reels with maturity and expertise beyond his tender years”. More recently he recorded with Face The West, a band from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, and was selected to represent the Western Isles at the Millennium Dome in London. He joined the Battlefield Band in 2002. http://www.battlefieldband.co.uk

Mike Katz
The unmistakeable piper who joined the Battlefield Band in late 1997 and has contibuted massively to the music and accessibility of the band. Mike comes originally from LA and has been playing the pipes from an early age (about 10) he learned and played in the same pipe band as another band alumni - Eric Rigler - Mike came to Scotland 10 years ago to study at Edinburgh Unviersity and has lived here ever since playing in various bands and combinations, including Scottish Gas Pipe Band, and Ceolbeg. He plays Highland pipes, small pipes, various whistles and is also a fine bass player - and has also ben seen secretly plucking at a guitar. Mike has written a number of very fine pipe tunes and has also recorded a couple of albums with Ceolbeg. http://www.battlefieldband.co.uk

Amy Geddes
Raised in Galloway, Amy Geddes is now at the forefront of contemporary Scottish fiddle playing as a performer, teacher and composer. She has performed in Scotland and Europe with various artists including Tannas, the Scottish Step Dance Company and Savourna Stevenson and all female group Maysha. Her fiddle style has developed over the years through playing with a numerous musicians in an eclectic variety of musical styles including, for example, a performance on a tribute album to Brian Wilson and with a new piece of music for the Edinburgh Mela, working with Chinese and Pakistani musicians. Amy has an assured and unique fiddle style firmly rooted in Scotland yet enhanced by an increasingly broad wealth of musical experience. Amy is now based in Edinburgh and is a full time musician, performer and teacher. http://www.amygeddes.com/

Workshop Leaders

Brian Irvine
Brian was born in Belfast. He studied music at Berklee College of Music, Surrey University and University of Ulster, specialising in composition. His music, which reflects an interest in various and opposing musical genres, has been performed throughout Ireland, the UK, Europe and the USA. He has written instrumental, ensemble and orchestral works and has composed music for five film soundtracks. Recent works include an orchestral work, 'And Pigs Might Fly', commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra; 'You seem distracted!', for ensemble; and 'Odd Ball', a percussion quartet for the British ensemble 4-MALITY. In 2003 he became the first Irish composer to be awarded the BBC Radio 3 Jazz Award for Best New Work: Interrupting Cutler. http://www.brianirvine.co.uk

Rick Taylor
Rick hails from Newcastle but now lives in Skye. He is in constant demand in jazz and traditional music as an arranger and composer. He is currently playing with Peatbog Faeries and the Unusual Suspects.

Riccardo Tesi
A composer, an instrumentalist and a researcher: these are the aspects of the complex and multifaceted musical personality of Riccardo Tesi, a true pioneer of ethnic music in Italy. From his debut in 1978 with Caterina Bueno, strongly rooted in the folk tradition, to the present day collaborations, the musical curriculum of Tesi, born in Pistoia, is characterised by a precious continuity based on eager passion and curiosity that have led him to compare his Tuscan heritage to the Italian, Basque, English, French and Madagascar traditions, as well as to jazz, liscio (Italian popular dance music) and songwriting. http://www.riccardotesi.com/