Jeana Leslie and Siobhan Miller
Jeana Leslie and Siobhan Miller won the 2008 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award at the final in London in December 2007.
Since 2005, these two very talented young musicians have been students on the BA Scottish Music course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow and that is where this burgeoning partnership began, developed, and flourished although both girls have been performing individually since their early teens.
Jeana Leslie (fiddle, Hardanger fiddle, piano, vocal) comes from Orkney and was a semi-finalist in the Scottish Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award in 2004 and 2005. She toured Canada in 2005 with her school group, Hadhirgaan and also took part in the Tall Ship Races on the musicians' boat, 'The Swan', on which Chris Stout was musical director. Jeana has appeared at several festivals, including an Orkney Night concert with The Wrigley Sisters and Kris Drever at Celtic Connections and in Donald Shaw's 'Harvest Project'.
Siobhan Miller (vocal, piano, dance) is from Penicuik a few miles to the south of Edinburgh. She first appeared at at the Traditional Song and Music Association's Auchtermuchty Festival when only 13 years old and has won both the children's and women's singing competitions there. Siobhan has appeared as a solo singer at several festivals including Glasgow's Celtic Connections, Gigha Music Festival, and as a guest singer with Jock Tamson's Bairns at Edinburgh's Queen's Hall (opening the city's Ceilidh Culture celebrations in 2006).
From their very first meeting at the RSAMD, Jeana and Siobhan have discovered an empathic approach to composing, arranging and performing music together. Their repertoire includes both instrumentals and songs, however, both being blessed with lovely natural voices which blend beautifully, whether in harmony or unison, they focus mainly on communicating through song whether traditional, contemporary or self-penned. As a major 'side-line' to their performances, both are already experienced in leading song workshops for a variety of audiences.
Jeana and Siobhan have now recorded their debut album which is slated for a much-anticipated release on Greentrax Recordings in mid-2008 and they can also be seen, as well as heard at major UK festivals including Orkney, Ulverston, Cambridge, Cropredy and Towersey during summer 2008.
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