Two Lewis stalwarts for the local music and culture scene are to be inducted into
HebCelt Festival’s Hall of Fame
Singer songwriter Willie Campbell, and An Lanntair’s pioneering cultural leader Alex
Macdonald are recognised for their outstanding contributions to arts and music.
They have been unveiled as the next inductees into the prestigious HebCelt Festival
Hall of Fame in recognition of their exceptional impact on the award-winning festival,
the Outer Hebrides, and the wider Celtic music scene.
Joining them are triple Brit Award winner Eddi Reader, and trad legends Skerryvore.
They join an illustrious group of past inductees, including Celtic and Gaelic music
icons Runrig, Julie Fowlis and the Peatbog Faeries, who were the first to be recognised
in 2010.
Willie Campbell first gained prominence in the late 1990s as a co-founder and frontman
of the indie guitar-pop band Astrid, and with Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody and other
notable Scottish musicians in the indie collective The Reindeer Section, before a
solo career under the moniker The Open Day Rotation.
In 2014, he released Dalma, his first album of original Gaelic songs, in collaboration
with musician Calum Martin, and composed and recorded the EP Dìleab with Western
Isles schoolchildren.
More recently, his album Soundtrack to the Life We Leave Behind, won critical acclaim,
and he is working on the highly anticipated follow-up to Between the Truth and the
Dream with supergroup The Tumbling Souls.
Alex MacDonald is the pioneering and long-standing head of performing arts and cultural
projects at An Lanntair arts centre, where she has led groundbreaking projects including
Hebridean Women and Between Islands, while championing the creative community and
cultural identity of the Outer Hebrides.
She was also pivotal in the move to the centre’s current ‘lighthouse’ home, and is
credited with helping nurture and encourage the careers of countless artists and
musicians from the area and beyond.
Other Hall of Fame members include acclaimed singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean, Capercaillie’s
Karen Matheson, Irish star Imelda May, celebrated local musician Jane Hepburn Macmillan,
and internationally renowned fiddler and composer Duncan Chisholm, who performed
at the very first HebCelt in 1996.
HebCelt Festival honours music trailblazers
29 May 2025
Willie Campbell Photo:
HebCelt
