A GAELIC SONG-WRITER

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 6, 9 January 1928, Page 3

A GAELIC SONG-WRITER

Mrs. Marjorie Kennedy Fraser, for some years has made it her life work to spend some time each year in the New Hebrides, where she has collected a number of the songs of the isles and arranged them for the concert singer. Mrs. Fraser was Marjorie Kennedy, born of a family that had been famous for generations among the Gaels of Perthshire for its enthusiasm for music. Her father, David Kennedy, gave up a good business to devote his life to music and he toured the world as a singer of Scotch songs. As his family grew they toured with him. There was a family; of 11. Marjorie, tho fifth child, attended school in Perth, but at 12 years old sho went as her father's accompanist on tour. At the age of 14 she went with her parents and family to Australia in a sailing ship, and gave concerts all over the country, the party travelling in their own carriage. They visited New Zealand, Honolulu, and Canada, and after their return the family divided, Marjorie and a brother going to South Africa. In 1879 she went to Milan to study; singing, and later went to Paris under Madame Marchesi, and toured the United States. After her return to Scotland in 1882 she began to study and sing the songs of her own language, Gaelic, and so began the first collection of Gaelic songs. After her marriage and early widowhood Mrs. Kennedy Fraser took up teaching, and studied under Mecks at the Edinburgh University, but her desire lay in research work among the songs of Celtic Scotland. However, it was not for some years that she was able to spare time from earning her own and children 's livelihood to take up the work. Four volumes of Hebridean songs have now been published, the last in 1925. Great patience was invlvprl in. the work, for she shared the lives of? the island people. She gives one concert in the season in Edinburgh, and thousands gather from every part of Scotland. In 102-1 Mrs. Kennedy Fraser wrote an opera, "The Seal Woman," in collaboration with Mr. Granvillo Bantock. The opera was produced in Birmingham. Every summer she revisits the isles, returning with fresh airs or variants.