Mike and Ali Vass

Twins, Mike and Ali Vass, just 21 years old, have been playing together for ten years.

Mike (fiddle, guitar, vocals) and Ali (piano, vocals) are two of the best young exponents of traditional music in Scotland. Playing a varied mix of traditional and contemporary tunes, songs with close vocal harmonies and footstompin’ jigs and reels, Mike and Ali’s performances are bursting with energy, drive and vitality.

Their inventive arrangements are communicated with style and great technical command, seamlessly matching an empathetic feel for the genre with a contemporary, innovative approach. They display the instinctive musical understanding often found among close family members and are a real duo, not a fiddle player and an accompanist.

Hailing from Nairn in the NE of Scotland, Mike first learned the fiddle at school and was subsequently taught by Ian Hardie (also from Nairn). Mike has competed successfully throughout Scotland including winning two Mod gold medals.

Ali began learning the piano at age 6 and is self-taught. She has won ‘best instrumentalist’ competitions at the Inverness Music Festival and Strichen Folk Festival. Both Mike and Ali have been invited to adjudicate at music competitions including two at Keith Folk Festival and Mike regularly teaches fiddle throughout Scotland with the Feis movement.

Mike and Ali have been gigging regularly in Scotland for the best part of a decade, appearing at Celtic Connections, the Fringe, Eden Court Theatre Inverness, Bute Folk Festival, Albert Hall Stirling, The Tron Theatre Glasgow, Hootannany Inverness among others.

Mike was a finalist in the prestigious BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2005 award, and Ali is currently a semi-finalist in the 2006 competition.