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Two of the favourite bands from last year’s Soundhouse Traverse programme together on the same bill.

Talisk

In their five years, Scottish firebrands Talisk have stacked up several major awards for their explosively energetic yet artfully woven sound, including 2017’s Folk Band of the Year at the BBC Alba Scots Trad Music Awards, and a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award in 2018.

Mohsen Amini, the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards’ Musician of the Year 2018, Hayley Keenan and Graeme Armstrong seamlessly meld concertina, fiddle and guitar to produce a multi-layered, enthralling signature that has effortlessly captivated audiences from the USA to Australia, and throughout the UK.

Appearances at world-leading festivals – including the Cambridge Folk Festival, Denmark’s Tønder, WOMAD UK and Las Palmas, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Celtic Colours, Milwaukee Irish Festival and five successive outings at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections - have amassed a die-hard following, whilst the world’s folk and world music media have also lauded high credits upon the trio.

The release of their hotly anticipated second album, Beyond, in October 2018 was met with a five-star ‘Top of the World’ review in Songlines, praising the band as “incredibly infectious and endearing… fresh, invigorating, accomplished and playfully frisky.”

This event has finished, but you can read more about folk music at The Queen's Hall and read and across Edinburgh here and find out about upcoming folk shows at The Queen’s Hall here.

“…completely blown away by the sheer dexterity and musicianship”

(The Living Tradition)

“Talisk creates an exciting sound that, in this case literally, drags an audience out of its seats.”

(The Herald)

The Adam Sutherland Band

Adam Sutherland (Croft No Five/Treacherous Orchestra/Session A9) is one of Scotland’s most exciting and innovative fiddlers. For Tradfest he will be showcasing his own compositions from the Scots Trad Awards nominated Some Other Land, and his earlier release Squall. Never afraid to wear his influences on his sleeve, his unique arrangements range from frenetic Scottish reels, through early 20th century jazz shapes to subtly Balkan diversions. Energy, inventiveness and craft combine for a feast of emotive slow airs, free spirited and joyful jigs and reels, with skilful and flamboyant playing from Adam and a masterful back line from an accomplished band.

The Scots Trad Music Awards ‘Composer of the Year’ 2017 has drawn together some of Scotland’s finest trad musicians in support of his extraordinary fiddle playing. They are John Paul Speirs (bass), Iain Copeland (drums), Andrew Waite (accordion) Marc Clement (guitar) and fellow Session A9 band member Brian McAlpine (keys).

"Sutherland performs with such warm, impish personality that it was no great task to soften the rather formal edges of the New Auditorium with his trademark melodic touch, fluid transitions between tempos, gift for groove and love of 7/8 time signatures, appealingly matched here with soulful keyboards, borrowings from Indian classical music and middle eastern influences."

(The Scotsman)

Presented by The Queen’s Hall and Tradfest

Tradfest 2019: Talisk + The Adam Sutherland Band