Note: the Graeme Miles Bursary was awarded for three years: 2015, 2016 and 2017. Allocating the generously allocated funds over three meaningful instalments allowed the Bursary to make a significant contribution to the selected artists' careers, with the results having legacies long beyond the dates when the awards were made.
The Unthanks said: ‘Supporting exciting young North-East based musicians is one of many ways we hope to celebrate and remember the inspiring and important work of Graeme Miles. Alasdair Paul is one such talent and we look forward to the work he creates through this bursary founded in Graeme's honour.’
About Alasdair Paul
Alasdair Paul grew up around the Highlands of Scotland. His interest in music began with chanter lessons from Carol-Anne Mackay and eventually led him to study on Newcastle University’s Folk and Traditional Music degree. There he was exposed to a wide range of music, broadening his outlook to encompass influences from Irish, Northumbrian and other European traditions as well as from the eclectic music scene centred around the University. An in-demand accompanist around the Newcastle area, Alasdair plays with ‘progressive trad’ sextet Pons Aelius, the Manx quartet Birlinn Jiarg and brand new Scots-Irish quartet The Flyting.
In addition to performing Alasdair is also active as a composer, having recently completed a Master of Music degree at Newcastle University. His compositions seek to combine and juxtapose new harmonic, textural and structural ideas with the melodic nature of traditional music.
The bursary will allow Alasdair to purchase new recording equipment to support his work as a composer and to record a new album of original folk music. Alasdair Paul aims to record and release one track a month to represent the changing seasons of the year.
Photo by Dominic Younger
About the Graeme Miles Bursary
Now in its third year, the annual bursary celebrates the life of Middlesbrough’s Graeme Miles, who died in 2013. A contemporary of Ewan MacColl, Miles wrote his first song about Hartlepool, Sea Coal, at the age of 14. After hearing the traditional songs of Tyneside, he set himself a twenty-year task to create a collection for his adopted native Teesside.
The bursary is designed to fund an important development opportunity, project or programme of activity that will have a lasting impact on the recipient’s career.
Previous recipients of the bursary have been singer-songwriter Joe Hammill from Thornaby on Tees and the Rachel Hamer Band, a Newcastle folk band with strong links to Teesside.
