Mary Ann Kennedy (Scottish singer)

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, is one of the Campbell musical dynasty from Greepe in the Isle of Skye, a renowned family of singers and pipers.

She trained as a classical musician from the age of six, starting out on piano and later taking up the clàrsach (small Scottish harp) and concert harp. She spent all her early years with the Russian-trained Australian pianist, Elisabeth Jacobs, and with the Irish concert harpist Sanchia Pielou, founding member of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra 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 with Welsh concert harpist Eira Lynn Jones. She completed her Master's degree there in 1995 and 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, latterly running the national Gaelic news service. She presented the long-running series Mary Ann Kennedy's Global Gathering (previously Celtic Connections) for BBC Radio Scotland until 2012, and currently presents World on 3 on BBC Radio 3. Since 1994, she has co-presented Sruth na Maoile, a bilingual Irish-Scottish Gaelic music series with Seán Ó hÉanaigh for BBC Radio nan Gàidheal and RTÉ Ráidió na Gaeltachta - the only radio co-production between the two stations in those 23 years.

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.

Performance

Kennedy was a member of the highly-acclaimed Gaelic band ‘Cliar’, winners of ‘all-time’ Best Album at the inaugural Scots Trad Music Awards. Her recent work has concentrated on a major book and album project, ‘Fonn’, showcasing the music and history of her mother’s family, the Campbell singing dynasty and an album celebrating Glasgow’s immigrant Gaelic song heritage, to be released in 2016. An album of Kennedy's original Gaelic songs and settings of 20th and 21st Century poets is scheduled for early 2017.

Recording

Kennedy has produced records by, among others, James Graham, Donnie Murdo MacLeod, Ceòlraidh Gàidhlig Ghlaschu, Ailie Robertson, Catriona Watt, Atomic Piseag, Shona Mooney, Bannal, Cliar, and Jenna Cumming. 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.