Violinist and composer Catriona Price is one of the most versatile musicians working in Scotland today. A prolific and highly trained classical violinist, grass-roots folk fiddler, composer, vocalist and project leader, Catriona studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music having spent her childhood in Orkney sessions and fiddle groups. Catriona is equally at home in a folk or improvisation session as in an orchestra or chamber group and is passionate about breaking down genre barriers and collaborating across art forms and cultures in all of her work.

Catriona is half of the internationally acclaimed contemporary folk duo Twelfth Day. Their unique music has taken them all over the world with performance highlights including WOMAD Chile, Canada’s Hillside Festival, Bath International Festival, and regular touring activity across the UK and Europe. Twelfth Day have received wide-spread critical acclaim including a live session on BBC Radio 4's flagship programme Woman's Hour. Their latest album Face to Face was mixed by Oz Fritz (Tom Waits) and nominated in the Scottish Awards for New Music 2020 in the ‘Innovation in New Traditional Music’ category. They are recipients of the Hands up for Trad ‘Ignition Award’. In 2020 they diversified their activity with a successful podcast ‘Figuring Out How to Be at Home’.

 

As a chamber and orchestral musician, Catriona has performed at the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival, Lake District Summer Music and Edinburgh International Festival. She plays with groups including Grit Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Opera North and Kaleidoscope Orchestra.

 

As a composer, Catriona’s first major commission ‘Hert’ – a 50-minute suite for string quartet, vocal trio, harp, piano, flute, drums and bass, was premiered at Celtic Connections 2020. That same year, her string quartet piece ‘May Alone’ won Scottish Natural Heritage and Feis Rois’ ‘In Tune With Nature’ competition. Catriona began writing music at the age of eleven. Several melodies have been included in tune books and have been recorded by players around the world. She has written string quartet pieces for Mr McFall's Chamber and with BBC Radio 3 Late Junction's Max Reinhardt co-wrote the soundtrack for an immersive theatre piece for 2-5 year olds. She writes string and vocal arrangements for Fara, and in 2019 along with Esther Swift composed the soundtrack for feature length motion picture ‘The Right Bus’.

In 2014 Catriona collaborated with three childhood friends from Orkney to form Fara. Fara celebrates the traditional Orcadian music the band cut their teeth on, whilst creating new melodies to add to the canon within intricate string arrangements. Fara have toured their first two albums around the world, with both records winning the German Critics Choice Award. In 2017 they appeared live at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, where they were nominated. Catriona was a finalist in the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year. 

 

Twelfth Day are recipients of the Deutsche Bank Award in Performance and Composition for their international folk music sharing project Routes to Roots. The aim is to create a network of like-minded musicians across continents, all interested in learning from and preserving each other’s cultures whilst also pushing the boundaries of innovation. Following their initial trips to Quebec, Malawi, Brazil, and Mongolia, Twelfth Day will create exploratory new music with musicians from each place culminating in a live collaboration, celebrating cultural diversity and international innovation.