The Team
The Board Youth Safeguarding Team Advisors
Catriona Hawksworth (Chairperson)
Rachel Newton (Chairperson)
Jenn Butterworth (Chairperson)
Christian Gamauf (Secretary)
Amy Leach (Welfare Officer)
Jen Anderson (General Trustee)
Essa Flett (General Trustee)
Carla Feuerstein (General Trustee)
David Francis (General Trustee)
Luisa Brown
Rona Wilkie
Diljeet Bhachu
Maddie Morris
Sandra Kerr | Karine Polwart | Dave Francis | Lori Watson | Inge Thomson | Rachael Sutcliffe | Sarah Jones | Emily Portman | Niamh Dunne | Una Monaghan | Karan Casey | Pauline Scanlon | Debbie Armour | Pedro Cameron
Coordinator
Bethany Walsh
Rachel Newton
Singer and harpist Rachel Newton is a solo artist and founder member of The Shee, The Furrow Collective and The Lost Words: Spell Songs. She has worked across various platforms including theatre and storytelling, previously winning a Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland (CATS). Rachel’s album Here’s My Heart Come Take It was shortlisted for a Scottish Album of the Year (Say) Award and she has been named Musician of the Year in both the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and the Scots Trad Music Awards. Rachel has organised various campaigns and events, including the Trad. Reclaimed: Women in Folk festival at Kings Place, London in 2019.
Jenn Butterworth
Jenn Butterworth is one of the UK’s top folk guitarists and is well known for working with a range of award-winning folk artists including Kinnaris Quintet, Ross Ainslie & Ali Hutton and Songs of Separation. Recently she was awarded ‘Musician of the Year’ at the Scots Trad Music Awards, and nominated for the same title at the Radio 2 Folk Awards. An experienced teacher, she leads the collaborative and public performance aspects of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Traditional Music Department.
Catriona Hawksworth
Catriona Hawksworth is a Scottish pianist, composer and researcher. Catriona plays with vibrant folk sextet HEISK, as well as performing regularly in duos with Sally Simpson and Kaitlin Ross. She was recently nominated for Composer of the Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards. Catriona is currently studying a masters in folk and traditional music with a specific interest in gender equality.
Luisa Brown
Luisa is a fiddler and youth work professional from Edinburgh. She has worked on youth engagement for Youth Scotland, Changing Faces and Scotland Malawi Partnership, and blended this with travelling the world and forging connections through music. This resulted in the creation of pan-European project The Schoolhouse Sessions in 2017 and Scottish-Galician collaboration Ambas Mestas in 2020. She has worked as Artistic Leader at Ethno music courses in Chile and Germany and currently plays in Balkan brass party band Blue Giant Orkestar and gigs-abroad-only Holiday Club.
Rona Wilkie
Rona Wilkie is a fiddle player and Gaelic singer from Argyll. A winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year, Rona combines voice and fiddle to create a new exciting perspective on Highland music. She has pushed the boundaries for fusion, combining her home tradition with many musicians from across the world, including with Scandinavian Mandola player Marit Fält, Basque super band Oreka TX with Tosta, and Irish-language rap artist Séamus Barra Ó Suilleabháin. She is also in demand as a composer, having written a New Voices for Celtic Connections, commissioned for string quartet and several film scores which have gone on to be nominated at BAFTA Scotland Awards and the Royal Television Awards. When not playing music, she is writing a PhD on Gaelic song of the Clearances at the University of Edinburgh where she is also Lead Gaelic Tutor.