Strategic Planning Consultant & Project Manager

TAoES: The Association of Exiled Scots

Curating the best of traditional and contemporary folk culture from around the world.

Founded in 2018 The Association of Exiled Scots (TAoES) was originally formed as a creative and cultural community away from home for exiled Scots the world over. Since then they have grown into a leading provider of Traditional and Contemporary Folk Entertainment around the world.

My work with TAoES started in 2021 when I took on the organisational management of delivering their tour to the World Expo in Dubai in February 2022 as part of the UK National Day celebrations. I was also engaged as a consultant on brand identify and strategic planning. I’ve since formed an ongoing working partnership with TAoES, collaborating with partners around the globe to plan entertainment and events. From large-scale stadium concerts and intimate acoustic sets to barn-storming ceilidhs, step-dancing workshops, and explorations of Gaelic and Scots language through poetry and song.

Alongside the culture people think of as idiomatically Scottish – a good solo piper in full dress, a toe-tapping ceilidh dance, a well-known tune on the clàrsach and a natty tartan troo – we create connections across cultural boundaries in celebration of all that folk can be. We love marrying the rhythmic vocal pyrotechnics of traditional Indian konnakol with the mouth-music of Scottish Puirt à beul, harmonising the evocative whirl of Scottish fiddling with some Icelandic fiðla, or lighting up room with lightening-fast Scottish step-dancing performed to the luminous chimes of Balinese gamelan music.

We believe folk culture gives voice to folk across the world. It is the songs that speak of home, wherever home may be. It is the past, present and future possibility existing side by side.