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Despite what some people might think, life for the Scottish folk musician isn't one long ceilidh. There may be a wider appreciation of our native music than ever before, and traditional music-making may have been boosted by a vastly increased range of educational and promotional initiatives - from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama's traditional music degrees to the booming Feis movement - but, according to concertina player and composer Simon Thoumire: "It's really hard, still, to be a young traditional musician."
Thoumire should know. At 30, he has been through it all - although he was given an enviable leg-up when he won the 1989 BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award. Now, with the help of Clare McLaughlin, fiddler with Deaf Shepherd and the duo cMc, and Elspeth Cowie, national organiser of the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland (TMSA), he has come up with a new award to encourage emerging Scottish musicians, the Young Scottish Traditional Musician 2001. The finals of the competition...