By Jim Gilchrist

Published 1st Jan 2024, 10:40 BST

The Scottish music scene sails into 2024 under the cloud of financial uncertainty bedevilling the wider arts world. The frustration was perhaps encapsulated by the Soundhouse organisation, committed promoters of acoustic music for the past two decades, from their famous house concerts to Traverse theatre gigs and festival programmes, who have announced they are pulling out of much of their activity and have given up on their long-term vision of a permanent acoustic music venue for Edinburgh.

Happily, however, they will still present six shows at the Traverse during the coming year, kicking off with Cahalen Morrison on 15 February, as well as their established music programming for Edinburgh’s Tradfest (3-13 May) and they hint at a new festival planned for next winter.

So the music plays on, against the odds, the year getting underway with a vengeance as Glasgow’s Celtic Connections presents more than 300 events from 18 January to 4 February, encompassing Scots and Irish traditional, Americana, jazz, world music and more. It kicks off in style as American mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile joins forces with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

The Traditional Music and Song Association, meanwhile, launches its annual Young Trad Tour at Celtic Connections (27 January) and will take it round the country later in the year. The TMSA is also mounting another concert during the festival, Scots Women – Generations o’ Change, showcasing our best female traditional singers.

One of Scotland’s oldest folk institutions, Edinburgh Folk Club, continues its 50th birthday season, with guests over the coming months including bagpipe-accordion-song trio BrÒg (10 January), fiddler Alastair Savage and veteran figures such as Archie Fisher and Alastair MacDonald. Sticking with tradition, the 19th Niel Gow festival at Dunkeld and Birnam from 22-24 March, presents such fiddle luminaries as Adam Sutherland, Charlie McKerron, Amy Geddes and festival founder Pete Clark.

The same March weekend sees the North Atlantic Song Convention return to Edinburgh and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Its host, Traditional Arts & Culture Scotland (TRACS), will also host its festival of traditional dance, Pomegranates, on 26-29 April and launch the first of Trad Treasures, a series of film portraits of important tradition-bearers.

Among the bigger festival beasts, Stornoway’s award-winning HebCelt (17-20 July) has announced headliners including indie rockers Del Amitri, Irish accordion hero Sharon Shannon and folk-rockers Elephant Sessions. Another award winner, Orkney Folk Festival, (Event of the Year at the 2023 Scots Trad Music Awards) runs from 23-26 May, featuring Canadian folk-pop outfit the East Pointers, Quebecois trio Genticorum and the redoubtable Orcadian outfit The Chair, celebrating their 20th anniversary.

Recognising the importance of contemporary folk creativity, the autumn heralds a new national music collection at Glasgow’s Scottish Music Centre, to preserve and make available compositions from Scotland’s folk musicians. Based on research by Dr Lori Watson, singer, fiddler and lecturer in Edinburgh University’s Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies, the collection will be matched by a new archive at the university’s renowned School of Scottish Studies Archives.

Jazz-wise, Edinburgh’s celebrated Jazz Bar continues its nightly programmes while, also in the capital, Whigham’s weekly Jazz Club recommences on 21 January, with pianist David Patrick. Later Whighams guests include pianist Ben Shankland, current Radio Scotland Young Jazz Musician of the Year, and Marianne McGregor – Vocalist of the Year in the recent Scottish Jazz Awards, while plans are afoot to celebrate the club’s 15th birthday in March.

Also marking a birthday – its tenth – is the enterprising Playtime jazz collective with fortnightly Thursday night sessions at Edinburgh’s Outhouse, its core of Martin Kershaw, Graeme Stephen, Mario Caribe and Tom Bancroft hosting distinguished guests. For the anniversary in April, they’ll release online recordings made during lockdown with guests including saxophonist Iain Ballamy and trumpeter Laura Jurd.

In Linlithgow, St Peter’s Church’s Red Door programme includes harpist Karen Marshalsay in February, saxophonist John Burgess in April and the fiddle-harp duo of Chris Stout and Catriona McKay in May. Stout and McKay also play Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall on 24 February, and the Queen’s Hall is also the venue for an album launch by award-winning jazz singer Niki King (10 Feb), as well as gypsy jazz swingers the Tim Kliphuis Trio (10 March).

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival returns on 12-21 July, promising further European collaborations through its successful SPARK programme. In the meantime, it presents a weekend mini-fest, Sing, Sing, Sing, on 16-18 February, presenting vocalists across the jazz-blues-funk-soul genres.

Sadly – and yet another sign of these straitened times – the longstanding Glasgow Jazz Festival, provisionally due for 21-23 June, has had its funding application turned down by Creative Scotland. Its tireless director, Jill Roger, has resubmitted and is now playing an all too familiar waiting game.

The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, meanwhile, plans two projects for 2024, the first being Nu-Age Sounds, touring Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh at the beginning of March. It features several young performers, award-winners all – vocalist kitti, pianist Fergus McCreadie, saxophonists Helena Kay and Matt Carmichael, bassist Ewan Hastie, trombonist Noushy and the collectives KARMA and corto.alto.

Early May sees the SNJO play Edinburgh and Glasgow with an old friend, pianist Makoto Ozone, in its first ever collaboration with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, performing Gershwin, Bernstein and Ellington.

Finally, the East Neuk Festival marks its 20th anniversary on 26-30 June. Classically based, eclectic in spirit, the festival will feature Welsh classical harpist Catrin Finch in duo with Irish fiddler Aoife Ní Bhriain and double bass maestro Renaud Garcia Fons, while flamenco guitarist Kiko Ruiz and Turkish kemenche player Derya Turkan join the ever-adventurous Mr McFall’s Chamber.

2024 Arts Preview: The Year Ahead in Folk & Jazz