[NoHo Arts District, CA] – The Celtic Arts Center in North Hollywood is honored to present Scottish traditional singer Iona Fyfe in concert on her first North American tour, Friday, September 9, 2022 at the Mayflower Club.
There’s a bright star rising on the Celtic folk scene and her name is Iona Fyfe. Skilled in traditional folk singing styles and with a wealth of ballads and songs to share, Iona is making her mark upon the world amid acclaim from locals and the many mainstream publications that have taken notice.
Iona Fyfe, a native of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, is known for singing Scots folk songs and ballads. In 2016, she was a semi-finalist of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award and, in 2017 and 2021, was a finalist of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician award. In 2021, she became the first singer to win the coveted title of Musician of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards. She is a fierce advocate for the official recognition of the Scots Language, performing both folk and pop songs in Scots.
On this, her first American tour, she is accompanied by two outstanding Celtic musicians from the Pacific Northwest: Alex Sturbaum on guitar, accordion, and vocals, and Brian Lindsay on fiddle, mandolin, and vocals.
Special thanks to the talented musicians of Scottish Fiddlers Los Angeles who will provide background music before the concert!
For those whose imagination has been captured by the Celtic corner of the folk universe, Iona Fyfe presents a special treat. She and her bandmates build on the Celtic form with its distinctive harmonic structure. Musicians will recognize the dominant and sub-dominant intervals, with drone-style parts that anchor the changes in the song. The band in its various forms applies pop sensibilities, chords arising from other intervals in the diatonic scale. These lend accessiblilty both to traditional and Iona’s original compositions—of which there are many. Iona’s 2019 release Dark Turn of Mind is throughout an exploration of Anglo-American crossover ballads, pieces that are rooted musically in the Celtic tradition of Scotland but have Appalachian and pop/country melody and lyrics. Iona’s top-notch musicians share her pioneering spirit, fusing modern elements into the instrumentation and arrangements, in ways that strengthen the tradition itself.
Lyrically Iona’s songs are timeless, with traditional themes of love, loss, and the struggle for survival. Iona hails from Aberdeenshire, known to the locals as “the region o butteries [pastries], castles, an distilleries.” She sings in the charming Aberdeenshire dialect. For a flavor of this way of speaking, one video is a great introduction. English speakers can immediately get that there is a language barrier between themselves and those who use this dialect, and the Scots language in general, by the challenge in understanding the speech without looking at the subtitles.
This leads to Iona’s cause. Scots, long regarded by the mainstream English-speaking world as a backwater dialect, has recently been recognized by international authorities, as well as those in England, as a language in its own right. The cultural and commercial world outside Scotland has been slow to accept the Scots language however. Iona aims to change this world where her language is unwelcome. She was recently successful in convincing Spotify to add Scots to their list of languages. In choosing her native Scots for her literary voice, Iona joins Scotland’s beloved poet Robert Burns and other esteemed Scottish literary figures.
Though true to her roots, Iona has an effusive rapport that is full of warmth for her international audiences. She is as irrepressible a beauty as she is an implacable advocate for her people’s culture, and this passion has boosted her appeal and acclaim. Yet Iona easily speaks the English understandable to the English-speaking world (though inflected at times with Scots), and audiences will have no problem following her as she engages them between songs.
—Larry Malley
More Videos from Iona Fyfe
Guise of Tough (Celtic Connections)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRVHjc1qAUU
Glenlogie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaYhg5WV6nU
About The Celtic Arts Center
The Celtic Arts Center is a non-profit 501(c)3, partially supported by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, whose on-going mission is to preserve and foster the performing and visual arts, languages, music, folklore and traditions of all the Celtic nations, as well as that of their diaspora. Members of the Celtic Arts Center can enjoy language and dance classes for free, and receive a discount on all ticketed events.
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