New musical work premiered at Lochaber concert

The “Thugainn” suite was written by Patsy specifically for the Highland Youth String Orchestra and ‘snas ceilidh after the Friends of Highland Young Musicians, a voluntary group who support the Highland Regional Music Groups commissioned her to produce an original score.  The audience were also able to enjoy rousing performances by the Highland Youth Pipe Band and the Gaelic choir, Còisir G.

Patsy Reid is 25 years old and graduated form Strathclyde University in 2004 with a 1st class Honours BA degree in Applied Music, specialising in performance and album production. She continued her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music and gained a Post Graduate Certificate of Education with Specialist String Teaching and a Post Graduate Diploma in Violin Performance.

At 17, Patsy was a finalist in the original BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award and is now a member of the band Breabach who for the past two years they have been nominated for Best Folk Band.  In 2008 she was approached to write a New Voices commission for Celtic Connections entitled 'Bridging the Gap'. The 50 minute piece of music was very well received and the live recording was released on Vertical Records in November 2008.

The Highland Council’s Music Development Officer Norman Bolton said:  “Patsy has a great amount of experience in performing and teaching both traditional and classical music so it was a great honour for the young musicians to have her with them as they performed Thugainn in public for the first time. The audience were very supportive and the whole evening was a great success.”