Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RSAMD) Alumni are Herald Angels

Fiddle stars Rant win top prize at Edinburgh Festival

Scotland’s new chamber-folk quartet Rant have won a Herald Angel for their performance at the Acoustic Music Centre @ St Bride’s during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Featuring four of Scotland’s leading fiddle players, Shetlander sisters Jenna and Bethany Reid and Highlanders Lauren MacColl and Sarah-Jane Summers, Rant formed in the summer of 2012 and appeared to huge acclaim at the Fiddle 2012 festival in Edinburgh last November. Their Fringe concert, which was part of the Made in Scotland 2013 programme, marked the launch of the group’s self-titled debut album, which was released on August 19 on Make Believe Records.   (Jenna and Lauren both studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly RSAMD), and naturally enough, the Whittaker Library has the CD on order - watch this space!)

Now in their nineteenth year, the Herald Angels are awarded by Glasgow-based newspaper The Herald for excellence across the range of festivals that take place in Edinburgh during August and are much-coveted among performers, companies and event organisers. Previous winners with traditional music connections include Gaelic singer Flora MacNeil, pipers Gordon Duncan and Allan MacDonald and fiddler Duncan Chisholm.

“We’re delighted to win the Herald Angel, especially as the other winners at the ceremony came from across the arts spectrum including ballet, literature and classical music,” says Rant spokeswoman Jenna Reid. “It was a complete surprise and an honour to be recognised for our wee part in the world's biggest arts festival.”

For further information, contact band@rantfiddles.com

National Chamber Music Day 2012

THIS Saturday, 15th September 2012, 

National Chamber Music Day

See what was on here.

Whittaker caught Sax Ecosse entertaining the masses at Glasgow's Buchanan Street Bus Station.  Alumnae of RSAMD, no less.  It was fun watching the reactions of passers-by: the wee boy who strutted past pretending to blow a sax; two more kids who strolled noncholantly by, trying NOT to look interested; the old lady who stood with furrowed brow trying to work out what was going on, or the others who just stood smiling and applauding at appropriate points ...