After leaving the brilliant and loud Breabach, Patsy Reid has become one of the most admired fiddle players in the UK.

She performed alongside Dougie Maclean and Kylie Minogue at the 2014 Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony, with Zakir Hussain at the London 2012 Olympic Festival followed by an extensive tour of North America, and in 2019 she worked with Mark Knopfler on his musical adaption of Local Hero. In the studio, Patsy is a one woman string quartet, contributing violin, viola and cello to albums by Flook, Seonaid Aitken, Donald Shaw, Brian Finnegan, Georgia Cécile, Duncan Chisholm, Kathryn Tickell, Hamish Napier, Duncan Lyall, Tim Edey, Ross Ainslie & Ali Hutton and many, many more.

Patsy combines skills and techniques from both traditional and classical backgrounds. As a child she first learnt to play tunes by ear at the Alasdair Fraser fiddle camp on Skye. As a teen she made the trip to Alasdair’s sister camp in California, where she learned her trademark percussive chopping style via Laura Cortese. On top of that she has a Post-grad Diploma in Classical Violin Performance from the Royal Northern College of Music. 

English folk singer Jim Moray reckons: “Patsy transcends simply being a folk musician. She has an understanding of what to play and when and how to play it that rivals the best of any genre.”

And the celebrated Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell says of Patsy: “She’s a fantastic musician, a lovely fiddle player and a joy to be with. No wonder everybody wants to work with her.”

Patsy has 4 solo albums to her name as well as two recent releases with cellist, Alice Allen, under the banner of Strathspey Queens, where they delve into historical manuscripts, breathing new life into the music of the likes of Scott Skinner and William Marshall.  Another project, LYRE, is Patsy’s trio with Alice Allen and Marit Fält and they released a fabulous album, Gin and Strathspey in 2022. 

As an educator, Patsy is lead tutor for Mull Music Makers, technique specialist for the traditional degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Musical Director of Mull Fiddle Week.