Session A9

Over the years Session A9 have been described as a “Scottish super group”, “The best band to have come out of Scotland in 100 years”, “Tighter than James Brown” and an “Amazing Festival band”, great praise indeed for a band formed through informal music sessions up and down the arterial Scottish road, the A9, culminating in their first ever tour in 2001.

2003 saw the release of the bands highly acclaimed first album “What Road?” featuring many new compositions by band members and leading Scottish tunesmiths capturing the imagination of the listening public and propelling them into the festival/gig circuit.

Since 2003 the band have successfully toured Scotland and England playing at many of the major music festivals in the UK including, Glastonbury, Cambridge folk festival, Celtic Connections, The Hebridean Celtic festival, Shetland folk festival, Orkney folk festival, Skye music festival, Tartan Heart festival, Eastleigh festival, Broadstairs festival, Blas festival and Ireland’s Celtic Fusion with New year celebration appearances at Perth Royal Concert Hall 2008 and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations 2005. European festival sorties include Ortiguera {Spain}, Tonder {Denmark) with additional concerts in Switzerland, Italy and the USA.

With 2008 came the release of the band’s second album ”Bottlenecks and Arm breakers” once again featuring many new compositions. This time round the band used top Scottish studios Castlesound and Park Lane with the vision of recreating the bands live sound through full group recording sessions. As in the first album the band line up was enhanced by the addition of Ewen Vernal on Bass. Touring successes during the year led to the band being nominated for best folk band in the 2008 Scottish Trad Music Awards.

The band has been a constantly evolving organism over the years with notable contributions from Kris Drever, Duncan Chisholm, Iain Copeland, Tim Edey and Ross Martin.