Fife Traditional Singing Festival 2025

Friday 16 May to Sunday 18 May 2025
Various venues in Falkland and Freuchie, Fife

The Lomond Hills Hotel in Freuchie is now reopened - beautifully renovated. So we now have accommodation for guests and participants and we are back once again with a live gathering!

The Festival in Falkland & Freuchie

This is the twenty second Fife Traditional Singing Festival - a unique opportunity to meet singers and hear traditional song in an informal gathering and participate in concerts, workshops and singarounds. A celebration of traditional singing - the songs and the bothy ballads - for singers and enthusiasts with guest singers from England, Ireland and Scotland.

Most events will take place in the Lumsden Memorial Hall in Freuchie just across the road from the Lomond Hills Hotel. The Friday Gathering will be laid out with seats around tables - bring along your own refreshements - food/ drink. The Traditional Concert on Saturday evening will be held in the Community Hall in Falkland. The Weekend and Day tickets include a Buffet Lunch in the Lumsden Memorial Hall. The Festival Dinner (limited booking) will be in The Covenanters in Falkland. Make your menu selection on the booking form with options to suit preferences.

Please download the Online Booking Form by clicking BOOKING FORM.

FifeSing2025 GUESTS

Steve Turner - Beeston, Nottingham // Kate Taylor - Skene, Aberdeenshire

Macdara Yeates - Dublin // Ellie Beaton - Rothienorman & Glasgow

and the hosts of the weekend:
Jimmy Hutchison - Newburgh // Chris Miles - Kirkcaldy // Pete Shepheard - Balmalcolm

Programme
Friday 16 May
The Gathering: (Lumsden Memorial Hall, Freuchie) 8.00pm - 10.30pm
This will be more of a singaround than a concert with songs and ballads from the guest artistes and participants - continuing as:
Singaround: (Lomond Hills Hotel) 10.30pm - 12.30am
An opportunity for more songs, some music and a bar till midnight.

Saturday 17 May
Presentation: 10.00am - 11.00am
Steve Turner: Napoleon - his rise and fall. From 1812 to Waterloo and St Helena, the story of Napoleon in song and music.

Illustrated Talk: 11.30am - 12.30pm
Macdara Yeates: 'The Brown and the Yellow Ale' - Folk Song or Literary Invention? An exploration of the much misunderstood folk song 'The Brown and the Yellow Ale', its traditional origins and its multiple authors by Dublin's most iconic figures from James Joyce to Luke Kelly.

Buffet Lunch in Lumsden Memorial Hall

Ballad Concert: 2.00pm - 5.00pm
The guests and participants with traditional ballads from their repertoire.
The classic big ballads - the muckle sangs.

Festival Dinner: (The Covenanter, Falkland) 5.30pm - 7.30pm
Dinner in the historic Covenanter Hotel just up the road from Falkland Palace.

Traditional Concert: (Falkland Community Hall) 7.30pm - 10.00pm
Old Songs & Bothy Ballads from the FifeSing Guests.

Singaround: (Lomond Hills Hotel) 10.30pm - 12.30am
An opportunity for more songs, some music and a bar till midnight.
.
Sunday 18 May
Illustrated Talk: 10.30am - 11.30am
Pete Shepheard & Jimmy Hutchison: From the Scarriff Fleadh and Miltown Malbay to the Berryfields of Blair. The songs we heard, the singers and musicians we met and how this led to the founding of the Blairgowrie Festival in 1966 and the TMSA - the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland.

Interview: 12.00 noon - 1.00pm
Chris Miles talks with Ellie Beaton and Kate Taylor about their varied influences and their enthusiasm for traditional Scottish song - with time for a few songs of course.

Buffet Lunch in Lumsden Memorial Hall

Farewell Concert: 2.30pm - 4.30pm
The guest artistes lead a farewell concert.

NEWS

Events will be much as in previous years: Gathering on the Friday and events on the Saturday and Sunday in the Lumsden Memorial Hall, Freuchie, with Concert on Saturday night in the Community Hall in Falkland.

The Buffet Lunches on Saturday and Sunday will be provided as last year in the Lumsden Memorial Hall in Freuchie just beside the excellent Albert Tavern - noted for its ales and whiskies.

BOOKING FORM

Please download the booking form by clicking:
Interactive Booking Form (Microsoft Office)
to fill in and return as email attachment

or PDF form: PDF Booking Form
to fill in and return by post.

Our ticket prices are the same as last year.

All-In Ticket (Friday to Sunday): £60
includes Buffet Lunches & Saturday Traditional Concert.
NOTE: Festival Dinner must be added to your booking (limited numbers).

Individual workshops and concerts can be booked
and details are on the Booking Form

PAYMENT: Payment by cheque or online by BACS direct to our bank.
Download the Interactive Booking Form to laptop,
complete (in Microsoft Office) and return as an email attachment.
OR: Download the PDF Booking Form, complete and return by
post or as an email attachment.
If you have difficuty with the online Booking Form just send us payment
(by cheque or BACS) with a note of your name(s) and what you are booking
OR telephone: 01337 830773.


Bank of Scotland, Cupar
East of Scotland Traditional Song Group
Payable to: East of Scot Trad Song
Identify your online payment with your name. Sort Code: 80-06-26
Account 00116207

GUEST SINGERS

Ellie Beaton
Ellie Beaton is a captivating award-winning Folk Singer hailing from Rothienorman in the North-East of Scotland. With a commanding voice that ripples with warmth and confidence, Ellie effortlessly embodies the timeless spirit of Aberdeenshire’s vibrant singing style whilst blending inspirations from across the globe. Born and raised in Rothienorman, nestled in the heart of Aberdeenshire, Ellie has carved a name for herself as one of the most promising voices in Scotland’s folk scene.

In February 2025, Ellie was crowned winner of the prestigious BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2025, four years after becoming the youngest recipient of the MG Alba Citty Finlayson Scots Singer of the Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards. Brought up in a Doric speaking home, she has a natural flare for incorporating her own dialect into her music, using the platform of song to highlight the Scots Language. Whilst being passionate about Doric, she is equally at home performing songs from across the folksong realm, taking inspiration from both English and Doric speaking artists.
www.facebook.com/elliebeatonsong/
www.elliebeaton.co.uk/

Steve Turner
Steve Turner is known as a pioneer of highly sophisticated English concertina song accompaniments, stretching the boundaries of traditional forms, with one of the best voices in the business. He is a multi-instrumentalist, who also accompanies himself on the cittern, and also plays mandolin and tenor banjo. Steve began his career on the Manchester, UK folk scene at the end of the ‘60s, with the Geordie band “Canny Fettle”. In 1979 he won the UK Melody Maker’s national “Stars of the 80s” competition, which persuaded him to turn professional, and for the next 12 years he toured solo, nationally and internationally, releasing four albums with Fellside Records.

In 2004 Steve made a welcome return to the folk clubs and festivals, and in 2008 producing his 5th album, the highly acclaimed “Whirligig of Time” which featured UK luminaries Martin Carthy, Nancy Kerr and Miranda Sykes. Since then he has released further albums, “Rim of the Wheel”, “Spirit of the Game” and “Late Cut”, and his latest much anticipated 9th album “Curious Times” featuring Martin Carthy will be released in Spring 2023.
www.steve-turner.co.uk

Kate Taylor
Kate Taylor was brought up in rural Aberdeenshire with the old songs all around her. In spite of that she only really started singing in public at the age of 40 after she and her husband Jim Taylor recorded a programme from Grampian TV presented in the early 90s with a whole range of singers including Robert Lovie, Elizabeth Stewart and Maureen Jelks. Kate was inspired by the songs and by the singers and soon found herself singing on stage two of the songs from the programme: 'The Plooman Laddies' and 'Dainty Davie'.

Kate has since become passionately fond of Traditional music and song, inspired in particular by the traveller sngers Sheila Stewart, Jane Turriff and Elizabeth Stewart. She is a keen supporter of the TMSA, attending festivals where she has successfully competed in the Traditional Singing Competitions. Kate has twice been a guest at Cullerlie Singing Weekend and at FifeSing in 2016.
www.facebook.com/kate.taylor.10297

Macdara Yeates
Macdara Yeates, this year’s winner of the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards, is one of a crop of young artists associated with the recent resurgence of traditional singing in Dublin City, alongside acts such as Lankum, Ye Vagabonds, and Landless. In 2012, Macdara became a founding member of a Dublin Folk Collective, The Night Before Larry Got Stretched. Folk scholars may recognise the latter as the name of an 18th-century execution ballad, but as Yeates explains, it has come to mean something else: “It’s probably a bit of a mouthful in hindsight - most people just call it ‘Larry' - but it’s the name of our singing session in The Cobblestone.”

With a crystal-clear voice that contains echoes of the declamatory style of Luke Kelly, Macdara’s recent debut solo album marks a new arrival in the Irish folkscape. Siobhán Long of The Irish Times writes; “Raucous, bawdy, reflective and wistful in turn, Macdara Yeates’s solo debut is a robust collection in which this Dublin singer revisits age-old tales and renders them anew with his own unforced imprint.”
www.facebook.com/macdara.yeates/

ACCOMMODATION

The Lomond Hills Hotel in Freuchie is now reopened.

The Lomond Hills Hotel in Freuchie has now reopened after major renovation and upgrade. We have negotialted a special deal for FifeSing participants: a continental breakfast will be included as compimentary provided you book DIRECT on the Lomond Hills Hotel website. You will need to clarify your FifeSing status with reception on arrival. On the other hand, you may find a bargain price with Booking.com or other hotel booking site (but no complimentary breakfast unless offered by the booking site). Hotel residents will have free use of the superb swimming pool and jacuzzi.

Website: www.thelomondhillshotel.com

Other local accommodations & restaurants

The Covenanters Hotel, Falkland. (Just up the road from Falkland Palace) & Restaurant.
Pitlessie Village Inn, Pitlessie (Just 4 miles from Freuchie towards Cupar) & Restaurant.
Best Western Balgeddie House Hotel, Glenrothes (4 miles from Freuchie).
Golden Acorn Weatherspoon, Glenrothes (4.7 miles from Freuchie).
Premier Inn, Glenrothes (5 miles from Freuchie)

Try searches on Google, AirBnB and Booking.com
for Falkland, Freuchie, Auchtermuchty and Ladybank.

There are other local eating places in Cupar and the excellent local
Kettlebridge Inn and the Boars Head in Auchtermuchty.