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THE
ANNA MASSIE BAND
Winner of a
BBC Radio2 Horizon award and winner of Best Folk Band at
the 2006 Scots Trad Music Awards. With Mairairead Green and Jenn
Butterworth this
trio is an excellent
example of
Scottish traditional music at its very best.
These artiste pages are intended primarily for Promoters and Press
Artiste
Homepage
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ANNA MASSIE BAND
Biography
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Winners
of the “Best Folk Band” Award at the 2006 Scots Trad Music Awards, The
Anna Massie Band is a young, dynamic trio finding a very warm welcome
amongst Scotland’s top bands. “Celtic culture in sparkling form"
(Celtic Music Shop) …“It should be illegal to be so young and so
talented” (Dirty Linen)
Featuring Anna Massie (Young Trad Musician of the Year 2003), on
fiddle, mandolin, tenor banjo and flat-picking guitar, Jenn Butterworth
on guitar and vocals and Mairearad Green on accordion and border pipes,
the band has made a considerable impression on the international folk
scene. Previous festival performances include Celtic Connections,
Orkney, Shetland, HebCeltic, Tønder, Gigha, Jura, Goderich and
Blas. Anna has twice soloed at Cape Breton’s Celtic Colours Festival;
in 2006 the band performed at the festival’s 10th anniversary, as well
as touring Denmark and Sweden and performing at the Cambridge Folk
Festival and a host of other British venues.
Anna’s debut “Glad Company” was released in November 2003 to great
critical acclaim. The band’s album “The Missing Gift” was released in
January 2006, with critic Sue Wilson commending their “near telepathic
attunement and seemingly inexhaustible inventiveness”.
With a “friendly, engaging and highly musical stage presence,” this
band is on the up, as their increasing array of nominations and awards
proves: nominated for “Best Up and Coming Act” at the 2004 Scots Trad
Music Awards, Anna’s nominations for the “Horizon” award at the 2005
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and “Best Instrumentalist” at the 2005 Scots
Trad Music Awards, and “Best Folk Band” at the Scots Trad Music Awards
in 2006.
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REVIEWS
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"The Missing gift is the second release from multi-instrumentalist Anna
Massie, Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2003 ,
who features on fiddle, guitar, mandolin, banjo, and tenor guitar, in
her regular pairing with guitarist/singer Jenn Butterworth and
accordionist/piper Mairearead Green. Massie’s other credit is as author
of no less than 17 of the album’s 28 tunes, a sparkling, beautifully
varied selection that highlights the players’ assertive individual
prowess, near telepathic attunement and seemingly inexhaustible
inventiveness. The breadth of Massie’s talents continues to amaze – she
particularly dazzles as a guitar picker – but for the most part this is
very much a group effort, continually adding up to more than the sum of
its parts, with two vocal covers revealing Butterworth as a singer of
considerable promise." Sue Wilson, Sunday Herald
“In recent years it has sometimes seemed as though the Celtic music
world is overrun with energetic young players and bands. Anna
Massie, Jenn Butterworth and Maireread Green have originality in both
writing and interpretation, finely tuned senses of humor, good
friendships and musical collaboration, along with outstanding
musicality and deep appreciation of their native Scots traditions,
which mark their work as several long cuts above the rest.
Each wrote part of the music on their second recording. Their are
several traditional tunes, along with covers of Steven Foster's "Hard
Times" and Si Khan's "What You Do With What You Got". Most of the
tracks are instrumental sets, with lively conversation among Massie's
fiddling, Butterworth's guitar and Green's pipes holding centre stage.
The friendly, engaging and highly musical stage presence translates
well to this recording, without the banter and storytelling to go
along. It is about the music, and these three have fresh ideas backed
with deep traditional skills and creative imaginations enough to keep
that conversation going for a long time.” Kerry
Dexter, Dirty Linen
"Massie's agile fingers rise to the challenge of the intricate Swedish
jig which leads off the solo Blue Angel set, it would be easy to take
her guitar playing for that of a much more experienced hand. That this
is followed by her picking up the fiddle to play alongside Mairearad
Green's equally impressive accordion, only adds to the evidence of a
remarkable talent, one that also extends to writing 17 of the 28 tunes.
But this is certainly no solo album. Green gets to display her own
inventive playing on pipes as well as box, and guitarist Jenn
Butterworth reveals a fine voice on the two songs. Three talented
ladies, one seemingly attuned unit. Missing Gift? Certainly not. The
trio's musical gifts are patently obvious." Calum MacLeod, Inverness
Courier
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