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ABOUT seven years ago, a promising trio of young musicians met at the Friday-night folk sessions in Sandy Bell's Bar in Edinburgh. They became Fine Friday, a vibrant young traditional band with a special, foot-tapping sound. They produced two acclaimed albums, Gone Dancing and Mowing the Machair, and toured in Europe and Australia, before they took the decision to go their separate ways in late 2005. Now, all three musicians - Nuala Kennedy, Kris Drever and Anna-Wendy Stevenson - are making waves on the folk scene and beyond.
ANNA-WENDY STEVENSON, 35, FIDDLE
STEVENSON's eponymous solo album came out in 2006, to widespread acclaim. The same year she premiered a New Voices commission for Celtic Connections, which was described as "a resounding success in its expansive compass and artful arrangements". She juggles composing and teaching with performing with veteran folk band Jock Tamson's Bairns, with whom she will be performing at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 1 February.
"There's a lot of music in my family [her grandfather is the composer Ronald Stevenson; harpist Savourna Stevenson is her aunt]. I'm classically trained, so when I got the traditional music bug, it was really important to feel that I could play traditional music in an authentic way. I used to play in the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra with Martyn Bennett. We would have an intense rehearsal schedule, but at break he would pull out his whistles and start playing. I wanted to be able to play like that, where there is no barrier between the music and the soul.
"So, when I was studying for a postgraduate degree in anthropology at Edinburgh University, looking at traditional music, I decided that I needed to be an active participant - in the pub! I was a regular at the Tron Ceilidh House and Sandy Bell's, where Nuala and I started playing together. We wanted to take it further and started looking around for a guitarist. When we met Kris, we knew he was the man for the job.
"Fine Friday was our own canvas, we could all throw blobs of paint in and have a go at mixing the colours....