The music from the new Scottish folk musical Ballad Lines will be released as an 18-track concept album on 12th September, following the release of a teaser EP on 18th July.
The album features a stellar cast of musical theatre performers including Olivier Award-winner Rebecca Trehearn, Olivier Award-nominee Kirsty Findlay, and West End stars Dylan Wood and Danielle Fiamanya.
Additional guest artists include Gaelic Singer of the Year Kim Carnie, JUNO Award-winning banjo player Kaia Kater, and four-time BBC Alba Scots Singer of the Year Siobhan Miller.
The album will be launched with a special one-off concert at Cottiers in Glasgow on Monday 15th September, featuring artists from the recording.
Ballad Lines is conceived by acclaimed songwriter Finn Anderson and director Tania Azevedo. It blends original songs with reimagined traditional Scottish and Appalachian ballads.
The musical follows three women across centuries and continents, exploring themes of identity, heritage, and the power of ancestral song.
The cast also includes Frances McNamee, Amber Sylvia Edwards, Owen Johnston, and Parisa Shahmir.
The all-female band features Anna Massie, Laura Wilkie, Jenny Clifford, Charlotte Printer, and Signy Jakobsdottir.
A single, Queen Among The Heather, will be released on 29th August ahead of the full album.
“This has been one of the most challenging and exciting projects of my career so far — a culmination of everything I’ve learned working in music and theatre over the past decade,” says Finn Anderson. “Our dream for this project was to create a true fusion of folk and musical theatre. For the album, we’ve brought together some of the most exciting folk and traditional musicians and singers from Scotland and North America, alongside some of the UK’s best musical theatre performers. The result is an 18-track score that I hope captures both the authenticity of traditional Scottish and Appalachian ballad storytelling, and the dramatic emotional sweep of great musical theatre.”
“Ballad Lines places queer and female voices at the heart of an art form historically dominated by patriarchal narratives,” says Tania Azevedo. “By reinterpreting traditional ballads through the lens of a modern queer woman tracing her matrilineal line, we both hope this show reclaims folklore as a space for diverse, intersectional storytelling—something rarely seen in either folk or musical theatre.”
More information can be found here.
