Julie Fowlis

Acclaimed nature writer Robert Macfarlane proclaimed that “if snow could sing, it would sing like Julie Fowlis.” Hailing from the Outer Hebrides and now based in the Highlands, Julie Fowlis is a multi-award winning singer whose music is deeply influenced by the Hebridean islands where she grew up and by the Highland landscapes where she now resides. Voted Musician of the Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards 2023, and with a career spanning several studio albums and numerous high profile collaborations, her ‘crystalline’ and ‘intoxicating’ vocals have enchanted audiences around the world.

She will forever be recognized for singing the theme songs to Brave, Disney Pixar’s Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA winning animated film, set in the ancient highlands of Scotland. One of these songs was long-listed for an Oscar. A winner of ‘Folk Singer of the Year’ at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Julie has graced stages around the world, from village halls in the Highlands to Carnegie Hall in New York, the Mozart Concert Hall in Vienna, The Philharmonie de Paris, Shakespeare’s Globe in London and the World Festival of Sacred Music in Fez, Morocco. She has collaborated with the BBC Concert Orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall for the Proms, sang live at the closing ceremony of the Ryder Cup in Chicago in 2012 to a TV audience of 500 million, an event that was only eclipsed by singing live at the opening ceremony of the Glasgow XX Commonwealth Games in 2014, to a TV audience of over 1 billion. Her voice has been streamed on Spotify alone over 200 million times, and has been heard in space on an official NASA astronaut playlist. She even has a lily flower named after her.

She was vocal coach for the Eric Whitacre Singers on the Dreamworks Animation How To Train Your Dragon 3: The New World (Cressida Cowell, score by John Powell) in Abbey Road Studios, London in 2018. She is also an artist with a genuine curiosity and ability for cross-over, and regularly sings and records in other languages. She currently performs and records with the folk ‘supergroup’ Spell Songs. A natural collaborator, she has performed with artists such as James Taylor, KT Tunstall, Chris Thile, Graham Coxon, Bill Whelan (Riverdance), electronica duo Valtos, Tommy Smith and the Scottish Jazz Orchestra, Nicola Benedetti, the Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Mary Chapin Carpenter. On June 5th 2024 she closed the official D-Day 80 Commemorations in Portsmouth, England with a live BBC TV performance of The Parting Glass with full orchestra and spectacular drone light show.