Frances Wilkins & Claire White (Blyde Lasses) Debut Album Release,

[Frances Wilkins]

Please see below for details of the new album, 'Blyde Lasses', featuring Frances Wilkins on English Concertina. Copies of the album can be purchased online at www.blydelasses.com

Traditional music duo Blyde Lasses release their debut album of folk songs and tunes, all with a strong Shetland accent.

Frances Wilkins and Claire White’s 'Blyde Lasses' album has developed out of seven years of domestic and international performances by the pair. Concertina player Frances explains ‘After many requests for recordings at concerts we finally entered the studio in 2013 to produce an album which encapsulates our own brand of Shetland music.’ The CD features old and new instrumental pieces as well as traditional and self-penned songs in Shetland dialect. Claire White adds ‘I’ve been playing fiddle for a very long time, but songwriting and singing are recent pursuits, inspired by my love of stories and a desire to weave more words into Shetland’s living musical tradition.’

The duo's name means 'glad girls' in Shetland dialect, reflecting the fact that both players spent their formative years in the islands before basing themselves in Aberdeen. Their playing partnership has seen them tour New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and Ireland in recent years, performing the music of Shetland and telling stories of island life.

As an ethnomusicologist Frances is expert at ferreting out old recordings and dusting them down for the duo. Claire works for BBC Scotland by day on all manner of creative projects and loves composing new material for Blyde Lasses to play and sing.

Biographies

Claire White was raised in the beautiful Shetland Islands. She learned the fiddle with Dr Tom Anderson from the age of eight and played as a member of Shetland's Young Heritage in Europe, New Zealand, the USA and Canada. She now performs regularly in popular Aberdeen-based ceilidh bands Danse McCabre and Jing Bang. In her day job, she brings all sorts of stories to the airwaves as a BBC Producer.

Frances Wilkins fell in love with the music of Shetland while living there in the 1990s and taught herself many of the melodies on the English concertina. She was soon performing throughout the British Isles and internationally with three-piece band, Sølan, and recorded two CDs in 1999 and 2001. She moved to London in 2001 to study music at the School of Oriental and African Studies before returning north in 2006. She performs regularly with a number of groups and is a lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the University of Aberdeen.

Editor's Notes:

Contact:

Frances Wilkins, frances@blydelasses.com, 07780 504930

Hear selected tracks, buy the album, see photos and read reviews at www.blydelasses.com

Edited April 22, 2013 by Frances Wilkins

[Jody Kruskal]

Lovely material and beautifully played. You two certainly have a special sound that deserves to be heard around the world! Keep up the good work.