2013-2014 Traditional Artist in Residence

The department of Celtic and Scottish Studies is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Stuart Eydmann as the new Artist in Residence for the coming semester.

Dr Stuart Eydmann

Project: The Fiddle in the Scottish Folk Music Revival

Stuart, who was born in Fife, will be investigating and recording the story of the instrumental side of the folk music revival in Scotland during and around the 1960s and 1970s, concentrating in detail on the music of the fiddle.

On the residency he says:

It will be a privilege to work with and help develop the archival resource and understanding of this crucial but increasingly distant phase in our heritage that is the bedrock of the current flourishing music scene. I believe that while the song revival has been well documented the time is right to capture the experiences and creative output of an exceptional generation of musicians, many of whom were my peers.

The results of the research will be made accessible through a seminar and publication and progress of the project can be followed through its dedicated blog:

Stuart brings both practical and academic backgrounds to the role.

He came into contact with the folk music revival while an undergraduate at the Glasgow School of Art in the early 1970s and played fiddle with several bands before joining the Whistlebinkies as fiddler and concertinist in 1980. He has toured extensively with the group and plays on 10 of its records. The band will feature in the University of Edinburgh’s annual St Andrews’s Night concert on 30 November.

Oral history research undertaken following a Glenfiddich Living Scotland Award led to his PhD (Open University, 1995) which was supervised by Peter Cooke of the School of Scottish Studies and Richard Middleton of the Open University. Stuart has published widely on free reed instruments, and his work on Scottish popular and traditional music is available on two websites:

Stuart has had a long career in historic building conservation involving work for local authorities, Edinburgh College of Art, Historic Scotland and the Architectural Heritage Fund. He has a particular interest in traditional and vernacular architecture and is co-author of an illustrated book on Scotland’s towns Painting the Town: Scottish Urban History in Art to be published in December 2013.