Edinburgh Tradfest: Morag Brown & Lewis Powell-Reid

Morag Brown and Lewis Powell-Reid play a rich repertoire of instrumental music from Scottish traditions along with many others.

Lewis performs with accordion, cittern, guitar and bouzouki, and Morag plays fiddle and five-string fiddle. Their shared intuition and love of spontaneity allows them to freely move between melody, harmony and improvisation.

Both musicians have performed extensively with bands playing music from the Balkans, Greece and beyond, and have pursued these musical interests in depth over the years. It is this tangle of influences and experiences that nourish and bring colour to their work as a duo, and it is their familiarity with each other that allows their music to unravel anew on each playing. In one moment their music might be heard to draw deeply on their Scottish and Celtic heritage, the next to slip into a sound which is altogether eclectic. Together, they speak their music with one voice.

The pair’s debut album Auld Springs New was released in Summer 2024, and launched to great acclaim with a series of sell-out concerts across southern Scotland and northern England. The album has since featured in The Guardian, as Celtic Music Radio’s Album of the Week, on BBC radio, and the duo was Traditional Music Forum’s Featured Artist in September 2024.

As a young duo, Lewis and Morag performed across the UK for charity Live Music Now, performing at events such as Cambridge Music Festival and St Magnus Festival. Other performance highlights include the Sage Gateshead, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and the Pianodrome. Over the years they have performed together in various ensembles: Horovod Balkan Band, Babylon Arabic Band, Jiginaboot Ceilidh Band and the Matt Seattle Band.

The pair now live with their young son in an old stone cottage fully renovated by themselves in the Scottish Borders. They feel deeply connected to the land, the landscape, and the rhythms of the natural world around them.

Explore more Tradfest events.

The Traverse Theatre is funded by Creative Scotland and The City of Edinburgh Council.

If you have access requirements, please contact our Sales and Welcome Team on boxoffice@traverse.co.uk or 0131 228 1404 so we can arrange reserved seating for you and discuss how else we can best support your visit.