West Stockbridge — Louise Bichan is a storyteller who uses a fiddle and camera to fashion new tales and retell old ones, pairing images with traditional and classical arrangements. The stories are, as she puts it, “of connection to people, nature, the past, and the possibility of the future.” Bichan will appear at The Foundry on Saturday, May 11, at 7:30 p.m.
Louise Bichan is based in New England these days, but she grew up and got her musical grounding in the remote Orkney Islands of Scotland, where she started playing fiddle at the age of seven after coming under the spell of musicians she heard at the Orkney Folk Festival. While attending Glasgow’s Art School, she performed with people like the Orkney group Fara and singer-songwriter Rachel Sermanni. A scholarship to Berklee College of Music in 2015 took her to Boston, but she has also performed throughout Canada.
In support of her second album “The Lost Summer,” released in April, Bichan will tour with Conor Hearn on guitar, Brendan Hearn on cello, and Ethan Setiawan on mandolins.
Bichan’s honors include a 2022 commission for a bluegrass concerto from the Freshgrass Festival and Berklee American Roots Program, a 2019 Making Tracks Fellowship, the 2019 String Department Chair Award from Berklee College of Music, the Berklee American Roots Award in 2017, the 2015 Berklee Worldwide Scholarship Tour Award, the 2015 BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award (semi-finalist), and the 2005 Ronnie Aim Memorial Prize for composition.
In Scotland alone, Bichan’s festival appearances have included the Celtic Connections Festival, Hebridean Celtic Festival,
Belladrum Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Shetland Folk Festival, Orkney Folk Festival, not to mention the Sligo Live Festival in Ireland. Elsewhere in the world, she has appeared at the Tønder Festival in Denmark; the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, Canada; the Lorient Interceltique Festival in France; and, in the U.S., the Rochester International Jazz Festival, Milwaukee Irish Festival, Red Wing Roots Music Festival, and the Freshgrass Festival.
Bichan has gotten a lot of calls for recording-studio session work, much of it in Scotland. She has worked with several artists recording for Adhyâropa Records and with acts including Corner House, Hildaland, Ethan Setiawan, Between Islands, Bellwether, Martin Butler, Fara, Richy Carey, French Wives, Rachel Sermanni, Skalder, and Hadhirgaan. Movie credits include the soundtrack to “God Help The Girl” (2014).
Hear Orkney fiddler Louise Bichan on Saturday, May 11, at The Foundry, 2 Harris Street, West Stockbridge. Tickets, $25, are available here. Seating/bar: 7 p.m.; show: 7:30 p.m. For more information, call (413) 232-5222.
Parking is limited at the venue, so please use one of the three public parking lots in town: one across from the Post Office, one behind Berkshire Bank, and one just off Main Street. Whatever you do, don’t park at Trúc Orient Express Restaurant or the Post Office, unless you want to get a parking ticket.
