Talitha MacKenzie

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Talitha MacKenzie (born on Long Island, New York) is a World Music Recording Artist who became known for her work as part of the duo Mouth Music.

She trained as a concert pianist from the age of four and began to teach herself Scottish Gaelic in her teens. She studied Russian at Connecticut College, then went on to get a degree in Ethnomusicology at the New England Conservatory of Music. She moved to Scotland in 1987, the year after releasing her first solo album, Shantyman!. First joining the Scottish Folk Ensemble Drumalban, where she worked with bagpipe and violin virtuoso Martyn Bennett, she established herself as a contemporary interpreter of Gaelic song in the duo Mouth Music (1988-1991). In 1993, she released her second solo album Sòlas (Solace), which did well in the World Music charts; she released Spiorad (Spirit) in 1996. Although most associated with Celtic music, she also performs arrangements of traditional songs from elsewhere in Europe, Africa and America. In 2004, she flew to Hollywood to sing with the Women's Bulgarian Choir on the soundtrack of the blockbuster film Troy. Her new album, Indian Summer, combines her own compositions with traditional songs in a variety of mainstream genres, in English, Scottish Gaelic and a number of Native-American languages, exploring her roots on both sides of the Atlantic.^[1]