Watch our Fiddlers on the High Seas livestream

Watch a new short film celebrating the history of Scottish fiddle music, with performances from Aidan O'Rourke, Vicky Gray and Maurice Henderson

Article by The Skinny | 22 Apr 2021
  • Aidan O'Rourke

This month, in the second of our series of longreads supported by Edinburgh International Festival, we took a deep dive into the history of Scottish fiddle music. We chart the links between Orkney and Shetland's fiddle-players and the whaling industry, the musical exchange between Scots and indigenous Canadians, and the continued importance of the fiddle to this day – you can read the full piece here.

To accompany the article, we've teamed up with Duck Duck Media to put together a short film featuring performances from three of the artists featured in the piece. Fiddlers on the High Seas: Then and Now includes storytelling and traditional tunes from Lerwick musician Maurice Henderson, as well as music from Vicky Gray – whose new EP, Atlaness, combines modern sounds with traditional fiddle tunes played by her grandfather – and musician and composer Aidan O'Rourke.

The film will be screening in a live Metastream watch party on Thursday 29 April at 8pm, alongside some additional content to help set the scene, which will include the National Film Board of Canada's documentary The Fidders of James Bay which explores the arrival of the fiddle in Canada over 300 years ago via Orcadian traders. The whole event is totally free – RSVP via Facebook here – and the Fiddlers... film will be available to watch on our YouTube channel after the premiere.  


Fiddlers on the High Seas: Then and Now will screen on 29 Apr at 8pm via bit.ly/duckducktv; please note, to join the Metastream watch party you will need to do so from a desktop/laptop computer – it is not compatible with a smart phone/tablet