It’s twenty years since Gaelic singer, musician and composer Julie Fowlis released her debut album “mar a tha mo chridhe (as my heart is)“, and her music is still deeply rooted in the coastal edges and wide skies of the Highlands and Hebridean Islands of Scotland which her songs conjure in vivid detail. She is known for making a musical map of the North, drawing in history, folklore and the intimate ecology of places she knows. It is said that her songs are journeying, shapeshifting things, possibly windows into an otherworld, in which a seal sings at the tideline between land and sea, and a swan laments the loss of her fledglings, or perhaps, they’re also portals across time and space too, breathing life into ancient poetry, allowing the voices of those who’ve gone before to speak to this moment now. Either way, she commands a great deal of respect from fans and fellow musicians alike. Her last album with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Karine Polwart, “Looking for the Thread,” was described on these pages as a “truly magical listening experience“ by our correspondent.
An artist with a seemingly genuine curiosity as well as the ability to cross musical boundaries, as well as a natural collaborator, she has worked with acts as diverse as James Taylor, Graham Coxon (Blur), KT Tunstall, Bill Whelan (Riverdance), Nicola Benedetti, Tommy Smith and the Scottish Jazz Orchestra, The RTÉ Concert Orchestra and the Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She also performs and records with folk supergroup Spell Songs and the harmonious chamber folk quartet ‘Allt’. Her singing has featured in “Brave“, Disney Pixar’s Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA-winning animated film, and reached the stars quite literally via an official NASA astronaut playlist. Scotland’s inaugural ‘Tosgaire na Gàidhlig’ (Scottish Government appointed Ambassador for Gaelic), hers is also the voice of Gaelic in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Project, which aims to record the declaration in every language in the world, from Abkhaz to Zulu.
Tickets for all dates are available from this link. Have a look at what you can expect below.
Julie Fowlis 2025 Dates:
October 27th – MANCHESTER, RNCM
October 28th – SUNDERLAND, The Fire Station
October 29th – MILTON KEYNES, The Stables
October 30th – LONDON, Cadogan Hall
November 1st – BANGOR, Pontio
