Graham Mackenzie

Highland fiddler and composer Graham Mackenzie is an innovative musician from Inverness. A graduate from the Royal Northern College of Music and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, he was twice a finalist in the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, as well as being a finalist in the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year.  His debut album, ‘Crossing Borders’, was released in 2016 and in the same year, Graham was nominated as ‘Composer of the Year’ at the Scots Trad Awards.

Graham’s second studio album, ‘The Dawning’ co produced with Mike McGoldrick, launched at Celtic Connections 2023. Influenced by Scottish, Irish and Cape Breton styles of fiddle playing, Graham’s new work, which has featured across the BBC, combines self penned tunes alongside repertoire which has shaped him as a musician, drawing on his experience of performing with cross genre group, the Grit Orchestra. 

Graham is a founder member of award winning instrumental folk trio Assynt who were the 2018 ‘Up and Coming Artist of the Year’ at the Scots Trad Awards. Their latest album, ‘Where From Here’ released in February 2023, has been described as ‘breathtakingly wonderful’ by FolkWorld. 

2019 saw Graham working alongside composer, Ruth Barrett to record the music to period drama, ‘Sanditon’, an eight part series on ITV as well as working with the Novello orchestra, performing soundtrack scores to live film across the UK. Graham also performs with Parisian Baroque ensemble, ‘Les Musiciens de Saint Julien’ playing extensively throughout Europe and Aizle. Having started playing the fiddle at the age of six, Graham remains the youngest ever winner of a Danny Kyle Open Stage award at Celtic Connections. 

Graham has been part of GFW since 2015 and continues to teach privately as well as tutoring at courses around Scotland through the fèisean.