Biography (Courtesy of the Blazin� Fiddles site, 2005).

Aidan O'Rourke
Aidan is a fiddle player and composer from the Isle of Seil of the West Coast of Scotland. He has toured extensively in Europe and North America from the age of 15 and has made his name as one of Scotland�s most expressive and dynamic musicians. At 19, Aidan formed Tabache with Claire Mann and went on to record the internationally acclaimed album �Waves of Rush�.

Aidan now performs with the hugely successful Blazin� Fiddles, Kevin MacKenzie�s Vital Signs, Unusual Suspects, an exiting new trio called Lau with Kris Drever and Martin Green and the folk fusion band Sunhoney.
�They keep the essential elements of traditional music, the melody and great singing, whilst managing to be at the cutting edge of modern Scottish music. An excellent debut. www.worldmusic.org.uk

Aidan is much sought after as a teacher, composer and session musician having performed on over 50 albums, ranging from Runrig to Michael McGoldrick.

Recently he has been touring with Blazin� Fiddles who appeared at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Proms, performing at festivals with Sunhoney and was a featured soloist in Donald Shaw�s spectacular �Harvest� concert at Celtic Connections in Glasgow. June saw his acting debut as a helmsman from Barra in the Highland Festivals theatre production �The Seven Hunters�.

Recent commissions have included music for Dundee Rep Theatre; musician in residence for Folkworks in Tyneside and a commission entitled �Mantra Alba� which welcomed the Dalai Lama to Scotland in June last year. Currently Aidan is musician in residence at the Tolbooth in Stirling.

�Sirius� is his first �solo� album, which was originally commissioned by Celtic Connections in 2003. This is a vast piece of work, which incorporates a wide variety of musical styles from ultra-traditional folk to jazz, roots and groove, all of which have had an influence on Aidan�s musical style and expression. The 13-piece band incorporates some of Europe's top jazz and traditional musicians including Brian Finnegan, Luke Daniels, Harald Haugaard, Colin Steele and Phil Bancroft. The live performances of this piece received much critical acclaim and in April 2003 the Carl Nielsen Academy of Music, Odense, Denmark chose to use this piece with their final year students as an example of how different musical genres can work together.

�The piece showed extraordinary powers of description, ambition and a vast range of musical references, and yet was as impressively executed as it was imaginatively conceived� Rob Adams, The Herald 20/01/03

The album is out now (December,2005).