Stout and McKay named in Angel awards

Shetland has been represented for the second year in succession in The Herald’s Angel awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Fiddle and harp duo Chris Stout and Catriona McKay have followed last year’s success by fiddle quartet Rant – which includes sisters Jenna and Bethany Reid from Quarff.

The two have picked up an ‘Angel’ for their performance as part of the Clarsach Society’s Scotland’s Harps concert series at St Andrew’s and St George’s church in the city last Monday.

McKay and Stout, who have worked together as a duo for almost twenty years and also appear together in Shetland band Fiddlers’ Bid, were joined for part of the concert by Finlay MacDonald on pipes and whistles.

Now in their 20th year, the Herald Angels are awarded by Glasgow-based newspaper The Herald for excellence across the range of festivals taking place in Edinburgh each August.

The awards are much coveted by performers, companies and event organisers and previous winners include pipers Gordon Duncan and Allan MacDonald, Gaelic singer Flora MacNeil, fiddler Duncan Chisholm, and fiddle quartet Rant.

Collecting the statuette on behalf of the duo while Stout was back in Shetland on a fishing break, McKay said: “What a truly lovely surprise. We’re delighted to win the Herald Angel, especially when we see the quality of performers from across the whole range of the arts that this puts us alongside.”

The Herald Angels are awarded each Saturday during the Edinburgh Festival and this week were sponsored by Edinburgh Napier University.