We’ve got some exciting news!!

Gaia duo would like to invite you to our 10 week bespoke learning experience!

Welcome to our very first GAIA tunebook and education series.

By subscribing to this project via our website, you’ll find 10 tunes, written by historical Scottish Female Composers - some known, some anonymous. This is a collection of our favourite strathspeys and reels, researched and performed during our time as Ensemble in Residence (2019-2021) with Chamber Music Scotland. We’d like to extend our thanks for Dr. Aaron McGregor for contributing his time, effort and huge wealth of knowledge to this project, and to the National Library of Scotland.

Our selection of tunes have been transcribed from compositions by Miss Henrietta Baird, Miss Stirling of Ardoch, Miss M. of O____ and a completely anonymous female amateur. Very often the names of these composers were scored out with black pen, or only the first letter of their name was given to deliberately anonymise the composer. This is part of the reason so few of these compositions live in our aural tradition today, and goes some way in explaining why these composers have been excluded from the ‘official histories’ of Scottish traditional music. It has been a fascinating journey, researching and performing pieces by these historical Scottish Female Composers - the thought of giving these works new life through sharing together with you (after years of being unplayed) is a real privilege for us and an exciting opportunity. We hope this goes some way in securing their names within the tradition once again.