HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Jenna Reid is a Scottish fiddle player who has been described as "...the finest fiddler in Scotland of her generation." She was born and brought up in the village of Quarff, in the
Shetland Islands Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the n ...
of
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
and found a fiddle in her grandmother's attic when she was nine years old and started to play it. She was taught by Tom Anderson and Willie Hunter and also studied the classical piano. She graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Dance, Glasgow, with a
Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
degree in Scottish traditional music where she also sang and played the piano accordion and the piano (which she learnt from her teacher Walter Blair). In addition to performing with her own Jenna Reid Band, she played with the Scottish traditional music group Filska (which originally consisted of Jenna, her sister Bethany and her mother Joyce Reid but later included her friend Gemma Wilson) which performed in France, Canada, the US, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Italy and Ireland. She and Filska represented Scotland by playing at the
Walt Disney World Millennium Celebration The Walt Disney World Millennium Celebration was an event at the Walt Disney World Resort as part of millennium celebrations held around the world. Running from October 1, 1999 to January 1, 2001, the celebration was primarily based at Epcot, wi ...
s at the Epcot Centre, Florida and they also played at Scotland's
Millennium celebrations The millennium celebrations were a worldwide, coordinated series of events to celebrate and commemorate the end of 1999 and the start of the year 2000 in the Gregorian calendar. The celebrations were held as marking the end of the 2nd millennium ...
s. She also played with
Blazin' Fiddles Blazin' Fiddles are a contemporary Scottish fiddle band from the Highlands and Islands. They formed in 1998 to showcase Scotland's distinct regional fiddle styles. The band have a number of awards, including; the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards L ...
RANT, the Highland Fiddle Band, the Gaelic band Dòchas, Deaf Shepherd, Fiddler's Bid, Vital Signs, Celtic Feet and McFalls Chamber. At the request of
Aly Bain Aly Bain MBE (born 15 May 1946) is a Scottish fiddler who learned his instrument from the old-time master Tom Anderson. The former First Minister of Scotland Jack McConnell called Bain a "Scottish icon." Career Bain was born in the town of ...
and Jerry Douglas, she has featured as a guest artist on
Transatlantic Sessions Transatlantic Sessions is the collective title for a series of musical productions by Glasgow-based Pelicula Films Ltd, funded by- and produced for BBC Scotland, BBC Four and RTÉ of Ireland. The productions comprise collaborative live performan ...
3 & 4. She played on the soundtrack of the film Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle. She was awarded the "Shetland Young Fiddler of the Year" prize in 1995 when she was 14 years old and was in the final of the "Young Scottish Traditional Musician of the Year" competition in 2004. In 2005 Jenna won "Best Up and Coming Artist" at the
Scots Trad Music Awards The Scots Trad Music Awards or Na Trads were founded in 2003 by Simon Thoumire to celebrate Scotland's traditional music in all its forms and create a high profile opportunity to bring the music and music industry into the spotlight of media an ...
. In 2007 she was nominated for "Best Instrumentalist" and was awarded the " Dewar Arts Award." Jenna and her sister Bethany were curators for the Shetland Fiddle Frenzy festival in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In 2018 Jenna started working as a freelance broadcaster for the
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
. In 2019 she won the PRS Traditional Composer of the Year Award at the
MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards The Scots Trad Music Awards or Na Trads were founded in 2003 by Simon Thoumire to celebrate Scotland's traditional music in all its forms and create a high profile opportunity to bring the music and music industry into the spotlight of media an ...
and also her band Blazin Fiddles won the Folk Band of the Year award. Jenna is married to drummer Iain Sandilands who works at Big Noise (which supports children through music) in Stirling. They have two children a boy and a girl.


Discography

*''With Silver And All'' (2005) *''No. 1 Scottish Traditional Music from the RSAMD'' (2007) *''The Laughing Girl'' (2008) *''Escape - The Story of Jan Baalrud and the Shetland Bus'' (2010 - with Bethany Reid) *''Morning Moon'' (2012) *''Escape'' (2012) *''The Quarff Collections'' (2014) *''Live in Shetland'' (2015) *''Working Hands'' (2019) *''Songs from Jenna Reid'' (2020)


References


External links


Official websiteBandcamp pageJenna Reid Facebook pageJenna Reid Twitter pageJenna Reid Instagram page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Jenna Living people People from Shetland Scottish folk musicians Shetland fiddlers Year of birth missing (living people) Blazin' Fiddles members 21st-century violinists