My first memories of performing date back to when Dad would put on variety shows in Wigtown and Newton Stewart and I would be put on stage with my brothers, Rognvald and Peter to do a turn.
Scottish Fiddle Orchestra History
How it all began for the SFO in Aberdeen in 1980
We would love to see you at any of the six concerts we play in the UK each year – taking in some of the best concert halls across the land. Our international tours have taken us to North America, Asia and Australia.
SFO Podcast – A Night in Inverurie
This podcast features snippets from the SFO's concert at Inverurie Town Hall in September 2019. Podcast 2 - The SFO at Inverurie - September 2019 The following music and song is featured: Willie Kidd's Welcome to Orkney (intro) - by John Mason March Strathspey and...
John Mason’s Salute to Cape Breton
The SFO is set to tour the north eastern seaboard of the USA and Canada in March and April 2020. The tour will include a concert in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Tartan Day 2020, 06 April 2020. To quote Wikipedia: “Cape Breton fiddling is a regional violin style which...
Be Part Of and Take Home a Little Piece of the SFO (38 years of SFO Recordings)
If you come to an SFO concert, you can’t miss our merchandise stall in the foyer. You may have been in the audience at one of our live concert recordings before and, if you are coming to our Hogmanay Concert in the Usher Hall on 30 December 2018, we will be recording...
The World’s Largest Ever Fiddlers’ Rally?
Scottish traditions and culture feature in various ways in the Guinness World Records: On 30 December 2000, in Edinburgh, 1,914 people danced the largest Strip the Willow, as part of Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebrations. The largest Burns supper ever was held in Glasgow...
Fiddling for Scotland
This is the text of an article - "Fiddling for Scotland" - which appeared in the Scots Magazine in April 1987 (by Margaret Henderson). It is reproduced here by kind permission of D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. Under the energetic baton of John Mason, our "Other National...
The Traditional Scottish Fiddler (A Layman’s Guide)
Here, we have an excerpt from the SFO's archives. Though Reesa McGinn's gift to her friend and fellow fiddler, Willie Dunlop, pre-dates the formation of the orchestra, they were both founder, and stalwart, members of the SFO. This "Layman's Guide to the Traditional...
The Big Draw: 25 Years On
Reesa McGinn was a founder member of the SFO and, together with her great friend, Betty Henderson, an essential ingredient in any SFO concert of the 1980s and into the 1990s. John Mason (pictured above) composed several lovely duets for Betty and Reesa to play, each...
John Mason Interview – Perth – December 2009
John Mason was the founder of the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra and its Musical Director until his death, at the age of 71, in January 2011. There’s a brief but revealing interview with him on YouTube, from which you can get a good idea of his drive and enthusiasm for...