Dòchas
Dochas started life in 1997 as a three-piece ceilidh dance band formed by Rachel Walker from Kinlochewe, Carol-Anne MacKay from Strathy and Sharon Hassan from Insch, classmates on the R.S.A.M.D.’s inaugural intake of students for the BA (Scottish Music) degree course. Between them they played accordion, whistle, fiddle, pipes, piano and performed Gaelic song, and the band really started as a way for the impoverished students to use their combined skills to earn a bit of extra cash playing pub gigs, weddings, parties and dances.
In 1998, singer Rachel was approached to perform with a band at the Highland Traditional Music Festival in Dingwall. The girls decided to augment their sound a bit and vary the concert set with the addition of Glasgow’s Kathleen Boyle on accordion and Eilidh MacLeod from Skye on clarsach (piper Finlay MacDonald was also a Dochas member for that first performance!).
In 2000, Rachel decided to leave the band to pursue other work interests and Dochas were delighted to take on board Julie Fowlis from North Uist- singer, piper, whistle and oboe-player who had just graduated from Strathclyde University’s music degree course and was then studying Gaelic at Skye’s Sabhal Mor Ostaig with Eilidh. Julie’s first gig with the band was a baptism of fire- a TV recording for a Gaelic music series in Stornoway. It was also in Stornoway, although some time later, that the girls enlisted the fiddling skills of Shetlander Jenna Reid, another R.S.A.M.D. student, since Sharon had also decided it was time to leave the band. And with this new line-up, the girls prepared to go into the studio to record their first album.
Dochas are now a six-piece band since the welcome addition in 2004 of former All-Britain, All-Ireland and World Bodhran Champion, Martin O’Neill from Glasgow, a classmate of Julie’s and guest on the hugely successful debut album, ‘Dochas’, realeased on the Macmeanmna label in 2002. The band has toured extensively throughout Scotland, Ireland, England, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Canada and the States.
In November 2003 they were nominated for and in 2004 won ‘Best Up and Coming Artists’ at the Scottish Traditional Music Awards. Their eagerly-awaited second album, ‘An Darna Umhail’ (The Second Glance) was released during the band’s 2005 Spring tour of Austria and the same year also saw the individual successes of Jenna and Julie at the Trad Music Awards, picking up Best Newcomer and Best Gaelic Singer respectively, each releasing their own solo album within a few months of the other.
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