Orcadian fiddle and mandolin player Graham Rorie is an award-winning folk musician based in Glasgow. Nominated for ‘Musician of The Year’ at the 2023 Scots Trad Music Awards and a finalist in the 2021 BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year, Graham has been making a name for himself as a performer, composer, session musician and producer since he graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Traditional Music Degree.
A founding member of quartet ‘Gnoss’, Graham has enjoyed festival appearances across Europe including Glasgow’s Celtic Connections, Festival Interceltique de Lorient (France) and Tønder Festival (Denmark). The band have also been
nominated for four MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards including ‘Up and Coming Artist of the year 2017’, ’Album of the Year’ for their last two records, ‘Drawn From Deep Water’ (2019) and ‘The Light of The Moon’ (2021) and most recently ‘Folk band of The Year’ (2023).
In his debut solo project, Graham brought together an all-star group of musicians to present a suite of newly-composed music inspired by his fellow Orcadians who travelled to northern Canada to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company during the 18th
and 19th centuries. The premier of this new work took place at Celtic Connections 2020, with a sold-out headline show incorporating collaborations with Quebec’s Le Vent Du Nord. "The Orcadians of Hudson Bay” was nominated for ‘Original Work of the Year’ at the Scots Trad Music Awards and was released in album form in May 2021.
Graham’s most recent project is a collaborative effort with pianist Rory Matheson. “We Have Won The Land” is a new suite of music inspired by the Assynt Crofter’s Trust and their community buyout of the North Lochinver Estate in 1993. The subsequent album earned the duo a place in the top ten albums of 2022 at the Scots Trad Music Awards.
Alongside his performance and touring work Graham also teaches fiddle for the University of The Highlands & Islands and is the artistic director of the Scots Fiddle Festival.
