Since she first started playing sessions and singing in bands in the Scottish highlands, Kaela Rowan has been gaining a reputation for her beautiful voice and uniquely varied repertoire.
In her early 20s she was lead singer with the influential Scottish group Mouth Music (named after the Gaelic singing style), recording three albums and playing prestigious headline slots at Womad, Glastonbury and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay amongst many others.
Since then she has performed with The Mike McGoldrick Band, Karen Matheson, Eliza Carthy, Dick Gaughan, Nusa, The Loveboat Big Band, and The Bevvy Sisters.
As a solo artist she released her acclaimed debut album Menagerie in 2014 and graced stages both home and abroad with her own band. Highlights include Woodford Folk Festival in Australia, where she led 80,000 people in Auld Lang Syne at midnight on Hogmanay 2014, and a main stage appearance at RIFF Festival in India in October 2013.
Most recently she joined Shooglenifty for their acclaimed seventh album The Untied Knot, her puirt à beul (mouth music) bringing a dynamic new element to the band’s sound. She toured extensively with the Shoogles throughout 2015, and will be on the road with the band again in 2016 including a major tour of Australia and New Zealand in March.
In April 2016 Kaela will showcase traditional songs from her eagerly anticipated second album The Fruited Thorn. These songs include arrangements of Burns’s Now Westlin’ Winds, the ploughman’s lament The Bonnie Woods of Hatton, Blackbird (What a voice), a version of which was sampled by Martyn Bennett on Grit, and the more recently written, and staggeringly beautiful, Gaelic song Eilean Fhianain (St Finnan’s Isle).
Kaela (vocals, whistle, guitar, ukulele, bodhran) is accompanied by the Kaela Rowan Band, made up of Shooglenifty’s James Mackintosh (percussion, imbera, hang drum, guitar) and Ewan MacPherson (guitar, mandolin, jaw harp).