(headline image: Rachel Groves – Photo by Alan Peebles)
Rachel Groves, who plays lever harp, won BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician 2026.
BBC Radio Scotland and BBC ALBA broadcast the final live on Sunday, 1 February, from Glasgow City Halls. Six young traditional musicians competed for the title.
Groves grew up in Aberdeenshire and began learning lever harp there. She graduated from Berklee College of Music (Valencia) and the University of Edinburgh. Her work draws on jazz, western classical, and world music influences, with a focus on rhythm and sound color. She also leads the Scolty Harp Ensemble in the North East and teaches lever harp.
After the announcement, Groves said she felt “amazing” and “in shock,” and thanked her first harp teacher, Alison Bell, who attended the event.
Author: Wojciech Rubis
Wojciech Rubiś is a jazz musician with an inclination towards world music, fusion, Latin, ethnic music. He’s active mainly in the music scene as a sideman, arranger and conductor. In this role, he has appeared in various jazz and popular music bands in Poland and abroad. He worked for cruise marine (including Royal Caribbean), theaters and television French and Japanese, including Canal +, La Cinquième, Planète + and artistic Muzzik (now Mezzo), MTV Japan. Wojciech has collaborated with many distinguished musicians, among others: Niño Josele, David Chesky, Kurt Elling, Michael Parkinson, Marisa dos Reis Nunes, Bebo Valdés, Javier Limón, Gary Witner, Jarosław Śmietana, Paweł Kaczmarczyk, Grzegorz Motyka, Ryszard Krawczuk, Michał Barański, Michał Knapik. He has considerable experience in teaching and music education, lecturer at many individual workshops of jazz and classical music organized by instituions such as Webster University Department of Music (St. Louis), Musicians Institute of Contemporary Music, the Guitar Institute of Technology, Los Angeles.