Shona Donaldson
Bogie's Bonnie Belle
Shona Donaldson is one of Scotland's leading young tradition bearers. Having studied at the RSAMD as a first study Scots Singer, she then appeared in the Young Scottish Traditional Musician of the Year final in 2003 and 2004. Originally from Huntly, Donaldson grew up surrounded by music and dancing in the heart of Scotland's bothy ballad country. As well as singing, Donaldson is an accomplished pianist and traditional fiddle player.
No area in the west possesses such a fine tradition of balladry and folksong as the North East of Scotland and the agricultural heartland of Aberdeenshire has long been recognised for its music and song. Born and bred in Aberdeenshire, the "bothy ballads" evoke romance and love, expose injustice, recount real events, but specifically have grown and been nurtured from the experiences of the men and women working in and around the farms or "fairm-touns" of the 19th and 20th centuries. The bothy ballads were composed (often not written down) and set largely to existing pipe and fiddle tunes by the men hired or fee'd at the locl hiring fairs or fee'ing markets held in towns and villages.
Huntly, situated in the very agricultural heartland of Aberdeenshire, has been the setting for many of the songs, with the most famous amongst them being Bogie's Bonnie Belle. Shona Donaldson, who is bilingual in English and Doric is currently researching the traditions of the Bothy Ballads in the North East of Scotland, in particular focusing on a