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Jean Redpath
Biography
Blessed with a sweet, but slightly roughened mezzo-soprano as gentle as mist and haunting as the highlands, Jean Redpath is one of the definitive interpreters of Scottish traditional songs. She is also a noted folk music ethnographer who has played an important role in the reconstruction of nearly forgotten Scottish songs and has been a lecturer at Scotland's Stirling University since 1979, and has also lectured regularly at Weslyan University, CT, and other prominent institutions including Harvard.

She was born in Fife country outside Edinburgh. Her father played hammered dulcimer and her mother was well versed in Scottish oral history, most of which was passed from mother to daughter via songs. One of four daughters, their mother passed on the music to each. Her knowledge of the ancient songs proved useful while Redpath was attending the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh and had begun formal research into her native ballads and compositions. She emigrated to New York in 1961 where she began singing in Greenwich village coffeehouses. Redpath also gave formal concerts at events such as the Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival and soon became an extremely popular performer on the folk circuit.
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