Amy Henderson: BBC Music Fellow
Guest blog
Since graduating from Newcastle’s Folk degree, Amy has been continuing to make a name for herself up in the Highlands. She performs regularly as a duo. She is also busy with her ever expanding students on the Accordion and continues to work freelance in schools across the Highlands. However this year Amy has taken on a new role….
Guest blog
Since graduating from Newcastle’s Folk degree, Amy has been continuing to make a name for herself up in the Highlands. She performs regularly as a duo. She is also busy with her ever expanding students on the Accordion and continues to work freelance in schools across the Highlands. However this year Amy has taken on a new role….
This year I have a new title… Amy Henderson ‘BBC Music Fellow.’ Thanks to the BBC Performing Arts Fund, I have been awarded money that allows an organisation to mentor and support me for a year, and I am delighted to I say that I get to spend the year working with Fèis Rois.
While working with the Ross-shire based charity, I will be part of a variety of different projects, training programmes, networking and even showcasing a project of my own, all of which will enable me to work towards my goal, of gaining more experience working within a community setting. So it came as no surprise when my already rather busy schedule became that little bit more full since joining the team!
Since beginning with Fèis Rois I have had the fantastic opportunity of going to Australia with a group of students for two weeks to play at the National Celtic Festival in Port Arlington, just south of Melbourne. It was an amazing experience and was great to work with some Australian folk musicians, which I found very inspiring, who we also got to perform with. They also showed us round the sights. What a great way to start my fellowship!
Over the next few months, I will continue to do various work with Fèis Rois. Over the summer I will be the Musical Director for the one of the National Trails, this involves leading a group of musicians across Scotland to perform at a variety of venues, clubs and centres over a period 6 weeks. Other projects will include running a SPL Musicbox at the Ross County Stadium and an early years project.
One thing I am really excited about is starting up an Accordion Orchestra!! Since moving back to the Highlands I’ve really wanted to give the accordion a bit of a boost to encourage its appeal, especially to younger folk, so I came up with this idea. There has been a lot of interest already. I think it is a fantastic opportunity to bring lots of accordions together with people of different abilities and styles to create enjoyable, and entertaining performances – fingers crossed I am aiming for this to be up and running in August.
‘Why Walk When you can Fly’ is the title of my first E.P which will be available in the next few weeks. I chose the title after one of my favourite songs which is by Mary Chapin Carpenter, to which I added my own arrangement – I feel this gives a taste my style and influences. You can hear this through Soundcloud.
I feel extremely lucky to be a part of the BBC Performing Arts which is public funded body enabling me to give something back to the public. Fèis Rois have been very supportive of this fellowship and I feel positive and full of enthusiasm for the next chapter.
