Hi UKAO Folks,

I hope you’ve had a good summer…though I know it’s been hard to distinguish from any other season….
Well all I can say is chin up as we head into autumn now.  I’m heading into a busy time so apologies for such long blethers this time but I have lots to tell you!

Early summer was spent promoting the new album with radio shows and interviews.  Highlights were meeting Radio 2 presenters Bob Harris and Aled Jones.  I resisted the temptation to ask Aled if he thought the Irn Bru advert take off of the Snowman was funny…I do!  (For those who don’t know what I’m talking about you can check it out here:

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Aled Jones was the voice of the wee boy in the original film.

Most of August was spent over in Canada at the much-loved Celtic Roots Festival in Goderich which is always a great experience.  
Hanging out in Toronto for a few days was cool, especially our impromptu performance at a bar named the’ Silver Dollar’ where myself and the guys got up to play with resident bluegrass band ‘Crazy Strings’.  All eight of us on stage were practising the bluegrass technique of playing round one mic which is truly an art in itself and I just about managed to dip out of the way for folk to come in close for their solos – keeps you on your toes!

We rounded off that trip with a tour of Niagara Falls – (I’m not one for being a tourist but it certainly has the 'wow factor') and we crossed into the States for one day to play Amherst Scottish Festival where all things Scottish were worshipped, they even had tossing the caber! there's a load of photos on the gallery page of my website: http://www.emilysmith.org/photos.html

A few weeks ago I headed across to Denmark for the fantastic Tшnder Festival where as well as playing as 'Emily Smith' I was part of a female folkie collaborative project called Seaquins.
To view Seaquins rehearsing see: http://www.tf.dk/pages/video.php?set_menu=155&setLanguage=english

 
The Seaquins experience was very special and I’m sure there will be plans afoot to make it happen again, I’d love to bring it to Scotland.

So despite the lack of sunshine this summer has been a great one for meeting new folk, writing and playing new songs.  

Austria Tour
Myself and the band head across to Vienna next week to begin a 20 date European tour.  The dates are mainly in Austria though we also head into Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland – all new territory so I’m very excited about that.  
The tour is called ‘The Scottish Folk Festival Tour’ and joining us for the duration is fellow Scots band ‘Breabach’.  I’ve listed only the date and city that we’re playing on this tour in the newsletter, to find out full details please see the tour page of my website: http://www.emilysmith.org/tour.html

Julie Fowlis Tour
And the fun continues when I’ll open for multi-award winning Gaelic songstress Julie Fowlis on her UK Autumn tour.  Please note that Julie’s tour begins on the 15th October but I join her from the 21st onwards.

Beth Nielsen Chapman Tour
I feel very fortunate to also be opening for Nashville based singer songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman when she plays four Scottish dates at the end of November.  Sandwiched in between these dates is an Emily Smith show at the National Centre for Early Music down in York.

All tour dates are listed in full on my website, please read carefully for details of who I will be playing with at each show.

Dirty Linen….DGB Life….
There is an article about me in the current issue of USA’s Dirty Linen magazine and I'll be the cover story for Scottish glossy mag -DGB Life in their October/November issue.

So that’s all for now.  I'll try and keep blogging while on the road and maybe do some video blogs too.

Thanks as always for reading and for the emails of support, much appreciated!