From Scotland: Brave the movie, Julie Fowlis, and music

Brave, the film, is set in the Highlands of Scotland in ancient times. It is an animated fantasy which tells the tale of Merida, a feisty high born girl who, when it comes time for her to marry and choose a husband from a select group of suitors, wants to maintain her independence and choose her own fate. Her choices about that unleash, as she says, “a tiny wee curse, or two...” and the action unfolds. There’s drama, humor, voice actors with the right sound, visual evocation of the Highlands through image -- and through music.


Though she had not been expecting it, Julie Fowlis found that she would be involved
with Brave -- or at least her music would. Fowlis is an internationally touring and award winning Gaelic singer, it’s true, but when she answered the telephone at home in Scotland she wasn’t thinking the call would be from Disney/Pixar Studios in California. As it happened, each time the production team came to Scotland to do research, they bought loads of music recordings and took them back to California to listen. Fowlis’ music, they told her, just kept coming to the top of the stack.





It is Fowlis you hear singing in this trailer for Brave







If you’ve been walking here along the Music Road awhile, you may recall first meeting Fowlis some years back at the time of her first solo album, Mar A Tha Mo Chridhe, and even before that, from her time with the band Dochas. If you’re new to her music and Brave has got you intrigued, you might like to explore

what she has to say about her recent album Uam

how she sounds on a live album: Julie Fowlis Live at Perthsire Amber

and read about her most recent project, Heisgeir, which has to do with film in a different way than the film Brave.

If the movie Brave has you intrigued with the music and landscape of Scotland, there’s quite a bit about all that in our archive here at Music Road, and there’s more to come as well.

you may also wish to see

more suggestions for listening to the music of Scotland
the soundtrack album for Brave, on which Fowlis has two songs Brave
The Art of Brave a book about the animation of the film


photograph of Julie Fowlis at Celtic Connections, above, was made with permission and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

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