It is no wonder that someone from the very edge of the North American continent would possess a voice as naturally captivating as the verdant Pacific Northwest. Emma Beaton, young cellist and singer from Qualicum Beach, British Columbia has what bluegrass super-star Laurie Lewis called, a "voice like a laser," clear, effortless, and striking to the core. The child of two Scottish emigrants, Beaton is no stranger to the traditional music realm. She learned to play the cello amongst seas of fiddlers under Alasdair Fraser's San Francisco Scottish fiddlers and at music camps around the US. This forced her to develop her own style of folk cello, adapting dance tunes for the instrument and conjuring up her own rhythmic accompaniment style to suit the fiddle repertoire. She has studied with other notable innovative cellists, under Natalie Haas at the Berklee College of Music as well as with Tristan Clarrige and Rushad Eggleston, both of Crooked Still. She has appeared on Scottish national television, performed at the Aberdeen Youth Arts Festival, and guested with Alasdair Fraser, Bruce Molsky, Back of the Moon, and Hanneke Cassel. At the age of eighteen, Beaton won the Canadian Folk Music Award's Young Performer of the Year after the release of her debut recording, "Pretty Fair Maid." A year later, after moving to Boston to study cello on scholarship at Berklee, Beaton's grace and flair remain, now magnified by a year at conservatory. She presently sings with the modern American string band Joy Kills Sorrow and is anticipating the band's first release with Beaton as frontwoman the summer of 2009. Emma has also recently joined Boston's premiere "chamber-folk" ensemble, Berklee's Folk Arts Quartet, and will be touring and recording over the summer with bouzouki player, singer, and dancer, Nic Gareiss.
