Fergus is a complete and well-rounded musician, a passionate communicator and consummate performer, a composer of elegant, nuanced and captivating music as well as a pianist and improviser of exceptional ability and originality.
Fergus McCreadie burst onto the national scene with his self-released debut album Turas in 2018. Rooted in a Scottish folk tradition and expressing advanced rhythmical flair, the album sparked a wake of interest from global promoters and industry, collecting Album of the Year at the Parliamentary and Scottish Jazz Awards and shortlisted for the cross-genre Scottish Album of the Year Award 2019.
With his trio, featuring long term cohorts David Bowden and Stephen Henderson, he encompasses a rare freshness of sound in this well-trodden format reminiscent of the originality and personality with which the likes of The Bad Plus and EST emerged almost two decades ago. In a vastly changed era since then, Fergus and his trio, with their profoundly mesmerising and compelling music, look set to evoke similar trajectories in developing a global audience. They certainly have the necessary instrumental command, communication and originality.
Pianist Fergus McCreadie is one of Scotland’s most exciting young talents. Born in Jamestown, near Strathpeffer, he grew up in Dollar and graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2018.
As well as winning the prestigious Peter Whittingham Jazz Award with his trio in 2016, he has twice won the Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the year under-17s Prize and is the winner of the Guy Jones Prize, the Joe Temperley Prize from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the Linda Trahan Memorial Prize from St Andrews University.
His trio has featured at the Glasgow, Edinburgh, Fife, Aberdeen and Islay jazz festivals regularly and has toured in Norway, Sweden, Lithuania and Estonia. The group has also appeared at Oslo and Stockholm jazz festivals and Ronnie Scott’s International Piano Trio Festival.
Released in Spring 2018, the trio’s debut album, Turas, has been praised for “reflecting his engagement with the Scottish landscape and musical traditions while also showing a firm grasp of the jazz piano tradition” (Jazz in Europe). Turas won Album of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2019 and Best Album at the Scottish Jazz Awards 2019, following on from McCreadie’s Best Instrumentalist title at the 2018 awards.
McCreadie’s music is an innovative blend of jazz and Scottish traditional music, inspired by his homeland’s breath-taking landscapes.
Following his 2022 album Forest Floor, topping the UK Jazz & Blues charts and earning him a Mercury Prize shortlist nomination, Jazz FM’s Instrumentalist of the Year Award, and the Scottish Album of the Year Award, his 2024 release Stream continued his rich sonic exploration of nature.
His forthcoming album, The Shieling, marks a nuanced and subtle yet powerful shift for him and his trio. McCreadie draws on fresh inspiration from the wild, elemental beauty of North Uist in the Scottish Outer Hebrides, capturing a deeper sense of space and openness.
In 2025, he will embark on a UK tour, including a headline performance at London’s legendary Union Chapel, alongside appearances at major European jazz festivals in Italy and Belgium, alongside a special contribution to the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s latest film, Highest 2 Lowest, starring Denzel Washington.
Artist’s Website
