Watson grew up in the Scottish Borders where she was a founder member of The Small Hall Band and played in the Clarty Cloot Ceilidh Band. She studied Scottish music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and graduated in 2003. She completed a PhD in Contemporary Innovation and Traditional Music in Scotland. She performs traditional, contemporary and original folk music and sings in Scots and English. Watson is from a musical Scots/Irish family. Her great grandfather Peter Augustus Meechan was a popular fiddle player in Glasgow, her grandfather Alexander Watson played accordion and everyone in the family sang. Today, her father sings and plays guitar, bouzouki and mandolin, and her mother sings and plays bodhran. Their small, independent record label, ISLE Music Scotland, owned and run by the family, issued the Borders Young Fiddles CD, a landmark in Scottish / Borders fiddle music, and Watson's debut in 2006, :Three. Watson's brother Innes Watson, graduated from the RSAMD in 2006 and is building a career as a full-time musician.
Awards
Borders Young Musician Award 1999
BBC Scotland Young Traditional Musician 2002 finalist
BBC Scotland Young Traditional Musician 2003 finalist
Contemporary innovation and traditional music in Scotland
Lori Watson completed doctoral studies at the RCS in Glasgow and St Andrews University in 2013. She investigated innovation and beyond-tune composition by traditional musicians in Scotland including a substantial folio of new and experimental musical works. Her supervisors were Dr. Stephen Broad, Dr. Liz Doherty, Dr. Stuart Eydmann and Prof. Raymond MacDonald.
This concert featuring the work and life of James Hogg in music, song, poetry and monologue was co-written with Innes Watson and John Nicol, and was performed and recorded live at Both Sides of the Tweed music festival in Selkirk, 2005.
MAELSTRØM - Legends of the Underworld
Lori wrote the music for this devised theatrical production at the Aberdeen International Arts Festival in 2016. The project was produced by Youth Music Theatre UK. Blending Scottish and Norwegian musical influences following the journey of 'Hag’ to the heart of the Corryvreckan maelstrom, a powerful place where the essences of Scotland and Norway meet.
Teaching
Watson was a lecturer and examiner at the RCS including Contemporary Studies, Honours Projects, Scots Song and Principal Study Song Group. She leads the Tolbooth Traditional Music Project for young people and regularly teaches workshops at folk festivals like The Border Gaitherin and the Scots Fiddle Festival. She was a Senior Tutor at Glasgow Fiddle Workshop for 10 years and taught fiddle on the Folk and Traditional Music degree at Newcastle University for six years. She is currently a Lecturer in Scottish Ethnology at the University of Edinburgh.
Articles
Broad, Stephen. 'Practice-based Research at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama' in Konstnarlig forskning: Artiklar, Prjektrapporter & Reportage ed. Torbjorn Lind, pp. 17–25.
