Christine Primrose MBE

Find work on Temple Records featuring Christine Primrose

One of the great Gaelic singers, Christine Primrose is a native speaker of Scottish Gaelic, and has been singing traditional Gaelic song all her life. Originally from Carloway, a village on the west side of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, she has traveled the world singing and teaching, blazing a path that many other Gaelic singers have followed. A multiple prize-winner at the Mod and the Pan Celtic Festival, and more recently awarded 'Gaelic Singer of the Year' at the Scots Traditional Music Awards in 2009, she has rightly become an extremely  highly regarded and sought after artist and tutor.

Her first album, Àite mo Ghaoil, was released in 1982 - at a time when traditional Gaelic singing was not widely known or appreciated - and broke many barriers, helping to introduce Gaelic song to a wider non-Gaelic speaking audience both in Scotland and beyond. “In retrospect, this is an album that broke the mould,” Robin Morton of Temple Records wrote on the albums re-release in 1993.  She continued to contribute to and consolidate the developing understanding and appreciation for Gaelic song and culture with her superb performances, acclaimed albums (both solo and with harp player Alison Kinnaird) and invaluable teaching at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Skye and further afield.

2017 was a significant year for Christine, which saw the release of her groundbreaking album of unaccompanied Gaelic song-  'Gràdh is Gonadh – Guth ag aithris' (Love and Loss - A Lone Voice).  A recording of poignancy and depth from a remarkable and mature voice, it has proved an important milestone in the career of an increasingly important artist and singer. This was then quickly followed by Christine's induction into The Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, which honours those who have influenced and helped to shape Scottish traditional music throughout their lives. Around the same period, Christine was the subject of an hour long BBC documentary on her life and work; a profile, following her from her native Lewis to New York, as she recorded and released Gràdh is Gonadh.

In 2018, Christine was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for 'Services to Gaelic Music to Culture and to Education in Scotland and Internationally', a recognition of her work and talent that she so thoroughly deserves.

Christine has frequently appeared on television, mainly as a singer, but has also presented a 12 series Gaelic magazine programme, as well as numerous radio programmes. In 1995 she was part of the cast as a singer in a Tag production (Theatre Company in Glasgow) which ran for three months.

She has toured extensively in Northern America and Canada, Australia and Europe, conducting workshops, giving concerts and recitals. She also took part in the prestigious Smithsonian Folklife Music Festival in Washington USA, as part of 'Scotland at the Smithsonian', along with Alison Kinnaird.

Now based on the Isle of Skye, Christine teaches Gaelic song at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic College, and also continues to record and tour.