‘If snow could sing, it would sing like Julie Fowlis…’ 

…this is how her pure Northern voice was described by acclaimed nature writer Robert
Macfarlane.  Hailing from the Outer Hebrides and now based in the Highlands, Julie Fowlis
is a multi-award winning singer whose music is deeply influenced by the Hebridean islands
where she grew up and by the Highland landscapes where she now resides. 

Voted Musician of the Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards 2023, and with a career
spanning several studio albums and numerous high profile collaborations, her ‘crystalline’
and ‘intoxicating’ vocals have enchanted audiences around the world. 

She will forever be recognised for singing the theme songs to ‘Brave’, Disney Pixar’s Oscar,
Golden Globe and BAFTA winning animated film, set in the ancient highlands of Scotland. 
One of this songs was long listed for an Oscar in 2013.  A winner of ‘Folk Singer of the Year’
at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Julie has graced stages around the world, from village
halls in the Highlands to Carnegie Hall in New York, the Mozart Concert Hall in Vienna, The
Philharmonie de Paris, Shakespeare’s Globe in London and the World Festival of Sacred
Music in Fez, Morocco.  She has collaborated with the BBC Concert Orchestra in the Royal
Albert Hall for the Proms, sang live at the closing ceremony of the Ryder Cup in Chicago in
2012 to a TV audience of 500 million, an event that was only eclipsed by singing live at the
opening ceremony of the Glasgow XX Commonwealth Games in 2014, to a TV audience of
over 1 billion.  Her voice has been streamed on Spotify alone over 200 million times, and has
been heard in space on an official NASA astronaut playlist.  She even has a lily flower
named after her.

She was vocal coach for the Eric Whitacre Singers on the Dreamworks Animation ‘How To
Train Your Dragon 3: The New World’ (Cressida Cowell, score by John Powell) in Abbey
Road Studios, London in 2018.  She is also an artist with a genuine curiosity and ability for
cross-over, and regularly sings and records in other languages. She currently performs and
records with the folk ‘supergroup’ Spell Songs.  A natural collaborator, she has performed
with artists such as James Taylor, KT Tunstall, Chris Thile, Graham Coxon, Bill Whelan
(Riverdance), electronica duo Valtos, Tommy Smith and the Scottish Jazz Orchestra, Nicola
Benedetti, the Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Mary Chapin Carpenter. On June 5th 2024
she closed the official D-Day 80 Commemorations in Portsmouth, England with a live BBC
TV performance of The Parting Glass with full orchestra and spectacular drone light show.

A regular TV and radio presenter, she is also a sought after voice artist, recently involved
with the Penguin Audiobook release for The Lost Spells, the hypnotic film upstream (Robert
Macfarlane, Rob Petit and oscar-nominated composer Hauska) and worked on the best-
selling video game Assassins Creed Valhalla, with renowned Norwegian composer Einar
Selvik.

She was Scotland’s inaugural ‘Tosgaire na Gàidhlig’ (National Gaelic Ambassador), an
honour bestowed on her by the Scottish Government, and in addition to her BA and Masters

degrees she holds an honorary Doctorate of Music from Robert Gordon University,
Aberdeen.  In 2023 she was the recipient of ‘The Sàr Ghàidheal Fellowship’, an award which
recognises outstanding contribution to Gaelic culture at Scotland’s National Gaelic college,
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

Julie is the voice of Scottish Gaelic for the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
Project, which aims to record the declaration in every language in the world. From Abkhaz to
Zulu, the declaration has been recorded in 529 languages to date.

‘Julie Fowlis: Highlands pride, hypnotic power’ 
Colin Randall, Salutlive review, 2024)

‘genuine genre-defying superstar…the best in the business’ 
(5 star review Edinburgh TradFest. QR review, 2024)

‘traditional Gaelic unaccompanied dance song, which Julie excels at, makes for joyful
listening’
(Live review: Celtic Connections 2024, Dave McNally, KLOF Magazine)

‘The purity of the Scottish singer’s vocals…a masterclass in intimacy’ 
The Times, live review of Kings Place, London

’icy beauty…a consummate masterclass in restrained delivery’
(Live review: Spell Songs, At the Barrier, 2021)

‘Sublime, magical’ FolkRadio 2022

‘Beautiful, haunting’ The Arts Desk, 2022

‘otherworldly Gaelic bird-singing…I fall, once again, completely under Fowlis’s vocal
spell.’ (Live Review: Spell Songs, RedGuitarMusic, 2022)