Scottish Musicians - Rachel Newton & Mairearad Green Present "Anna Bahn" at The Glad Cafe, Glasgow

Their mothers hailing from Achnahaird, Coigach in the Northwest Highlands, where Mairearad was also brought up. Despite having played music together both informally and professionally over the years as part of various groups and projects, this is the first piece of work they’ve made as a duo.

They have come together to celebrate and remember their Great-Great-Grandmother Anna Bhàn's involvement in the successful women-led Coigach resistance* of 1852/53 during the Highland Clearances. Inspired by recent community plans to build a sculpture in honour of these women in the area, they composed a body of work together in Coigach in the summer of 2023 and together with producer Andy Bell, have recorded an album, due for release in the Autumn of 2024.

With songs in both Gaelic and English and featuring pipes, accordion, harp, piano and viola, Mairearad and Rachel’s award-winning compositional styles merge to create something truly unique and personal, that both reflects their response to the events of the past and their relationship with the place and the people of Coigach in the present day.

*Coigach Resistance: during the second wave of Clearances in 1852-3, the people of Coigach – primarily (for various reasons) women – resisted repeated efforts by the Landlord to move: they stripped a sheriff officer of his clothes, burned the writ and put him back in the boat

Sunday 29th September, The Glad Cafe, 1006A Pollockshaws Road, Glasgow G4 2HG. Doors: 19:30. Tickets £17.60. Venue: 0141 636 6119.