Mary Ann Kennedy (Scottish singer)

Kennedy in 2007

Mary Ann Kennedy (Mairi Anna Nic Ualraig),[1] born 1968, is a Scottish musician, singer, composer, radio and television presenter, and music producer.

Biography

Mary Ann Kennedy was born and brought up in Glasgow in a Gaelic-speaking household. Her father was from the Isle of Tiree, and her mother, Kenna Campbell, one of the Campbell family of Greepe in the Isle of Skye, a family of singers and pipers.[2]

She trained as a classical musician from the age of six, starting out on piano and later taking up the harp.[2] She went on to study as a pianist at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and undertook postgraduate research and training at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where she was the first harpist in the college's history to be awarded its highest performance diploma. Her thesis was a study of Gaelic puirt a beul, or "mouth music", a speciality of her mother's family.

From 1993 she lived and worked in Inverness as a news presenter and musician.[2] Mary Ann Kennedy has received several awards, including a Saltire Society Award for her Highland Festival commission, Lasair Dhè, and "Radio Presenter of the Year 2007" from the Celtic Media Festival.

She has produced records by, among others, James Graham, Donnie Murdo MacLeod, Ceolraidh Gaidhlig Ghlaschu, Ailie Robertson, Catriona Watt, Atomic Piseag, Shona Mooney, Bannal, Cliar, and Jenna Cumming. Mary Ann presents radio shows including Mary Ann Kennedy's Global Gathering on BBC Radio Scotland, 'World on 3' on BBC Radio 3, and BBC Radio nan Gaidheal, and television programmes on BBC Scotland/BBC Alba and BBC Four. She runs the residential recording and creative facility, Watercolour Music Studios, with her husband Nick Turner from their base near Fort William in the West Highlands.

References

  1. ↑ BBC Alba: Highlights from the Royal National Mod
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Mary Ann Kennedy". BBC. Retrieved 10 December 2010.

External links