• GRIT Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival 2024

    Winner of the Scottish Awards for New Music for innovation in New Traditional Music, the GRIT Orchestra is bound to push the limits of genre and Celtic culture.More Info...

  • Blackbird performed at the closing ceremony of the Military Tattoo

    Martyn Bennett's track Blackbird, from the album GRIT, is being performed at the closing ceremony of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.More Info...

  • Kirsty Matheson at Celtic Connections 2022

    Kirsty Matheson has been described as an “artistic polymath” by Tom Service on BBC Radio 3, who called her art a “jaw-dropping kaleidoscope of images”.More Info...

  • Grit Orchestra performing at Celtic Connections 2020

    Two incredible orchestral nights for CC 2020... More Info...

  • Mackay's Memoirs - The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh
  • Bothy Culture - Edinburgh International Festival
  • Tongues of Kali Video

    This video was the only track to receive MTV treatment... More Info...

  • Bothy Culture 20th Anniversary

    It's 20 years since, arguably, his best album... More Info...

  • Bothy Culture & Beyond
  • Martyn Bennett GRIT... Available on vinyl for the first time

    Martyn Bennett GRIT... Available on vinyl for the first time from Real World Records and Amazon – 2LP, 180g yellow vinyl, with digital download card... More Info...

  • GRIT - The Orchestra, Edinburgh Playhouse, Tuesday 23 August 2016

    An epic symphonic reimagining of the visionary GRIT, the final album by pioneering Scottish piper, fiddler and studio mixer Martyn Bennett, bringing together an 80-piece symphony... More Info...

  • Bothy Culture - Sounds of a City

    We're looking at an album that links the old with the new, the traditional with the electronic, and it's Martyn Bennett's Bothy Culture. Released in 1997, Martyn's second... More Info...

  • 2015 Trad Awards: GRIT Wins Event Of The Year!

    A LAVISH tribute concert to the groundbreaking musician Martyn Bennett - staged 10 years after his death - has been named event of the year at Scotland’s traditional music Oscars.... More Info...

  • Remembering Martyn Bennett: The rebirth of GRIT

    The opening night of this year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow will feature a full orchestration of Martyn Bennett's last album, GRIT, by cross-genre classical violinist Greg Lawson... MORE INFO...

  • Scots Trad Music Awards

    A STAGE show inspired by the life and legacy of a groundbreaking musician whose life was cut short by cancer at the age of just 33 has been named event of the year at the annual... MORE INFO...

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    Combining celebration with commemoration, Celtic Connections 2015 opens with the live world première of Martyn Bennett’s final masterpiece Grit, originally released in 2003, and... MORE INFO...

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    The Martyn Bennett Prize was open to all Scottish-based musicians to create a new five – ten minute long composition that showed its roots in traditional music. The winner received £2000 and... MORE INFO...

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    GRIT - Gold Edition

    The Real World Gold reissue of Matyn Bennett's album GRIT features two bonus tracks. The first is a remix of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sky Blue’, which Martyn had worked on at Peter’s request... MORE INFO...

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    GRIT - The Martyn Bennett Story

    An ambitious new cross-form, Scots-Canadian site specific production based on the inspiring life and music of one of Scotland's most innovative, pioneering and influential musicians; the tragically late ... MORE INFO...

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    Blackbird: A film by Jamie Chambers

    For me, Martyn served as a gateway to a whole side of Scottish culture that , up to that point, I didn't know existed. As a young Scot I had long been looking for something amidst the tartantry and... MORE INFO...

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    Gary West: Voicing Scotland

    Dr Gary West has kindly allowed us to post an excerpt about Martyn from his superb book 'Voicing Scotland'. We think this is one of the finest accounts of Martyn... MORE INFO...

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    Hall of Fame tribute for talented piper Martyn Bennett

    A PIONEERING piper whose life was cut short at the age of just 33 is to be inuagurated into Scotland’s flagship music “hall of fame” seven years after his death. MORE INFO...

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    AYE: Martyn Bennett

    After several years in the making a new compilation of Martyn's music has finally been released in March 2012 featuring some of Martyn's best loved tunes plus previously unreleased tracks. MORE INFO...

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    BBC Scotland Global Gathering

    Mary Ann Kennedy celebrates the work of groundbreaking musician and composer Martyn Bennett with special guests Kirsten Bennett, Barry Reid and Fraser Fifield. MORE INFO...

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    Grit: The story behind the cover

    How did the cover come about? BJ Stewart, Martyn Bennett's official photographer, talks about the photoshoot, location and the inspiration behind the iconic image of Martyn. MORE INFO...

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    Martyn Bennett Image Gallery

    Click to view the image gallery showing photos of Martyn in concert and publicity shots. There are also several collections of artwork for albums and promotions. MORE INFO...

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    Sign Martyn's Guestbook

    Drop your personal thoughts and best wishes on Martyn's Guestbook. Everyone at The Martyn Bennett Trust are always glad to hear what you have to say. MORE INFO...

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    Techno's Lone Piper

    Click here to view a comprehensive list of Martyn Bennett's main achievements. Studio recordings, Concerts and travels abroad are all covered. MORE INFO...

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    Martyn Bennett: 1971-2005
TOP STORY: GRIT Orchestra to perform at the Edinburgh Playhouse
Edinburgh International Festival 2024 closing performance.
MORE INFO...

ABOUT THE TRUST

The MBT aims to reflect Martyn's vision of music through supporting performances, commissions, new recordings and educational projects. In setting up the MBT, we thought about Martyn's characteristics as a musician and as a person, and how we could reflect these in the projects we run and the events we hold. Among these characteristics are freedom, innovation and creativity, boldness, honesty, grit, breaking through boundaries, brilliant musicianship and a deep connection to... MORE INFO

TESTIMONIALS

"We are all very upset to learn of Martyn's death. It has been such a delight for us to work with him over the last 4 years. He was mixing traditional Scottish music with contemporary grooves and arrangements in a very unique and soulful way. He will be badly missed as a creator, player and inspiring man."

Peter Gabriel

"Martyn never planned to get up anyone's nose. He was full of integrity, as a person and as an artist, and he had enormous regard for traditional music – he respected traditional musicians far above anything he ever did himself. He was never radical just for the sake of it – it was always in pursuit of what he wanted to do artistically."

Fred Morrison

"The musical world that Celtic Connections inhabits is much diminished with the loss of the musical genius and beautiful soul that was Martyn. Martyn was the boy who did it first, who did it best - and whose most recent work in 'Grit' showed that he still towered above the rest in terms of imagination, understanding, humour, respect and daring in his music."

Mary Ann Kennedy

"When I first heard his stuff, I just couldn't believe anyone could be that audacious. I still had the idea back then that there was such a thing as going too far with traditional music – and Martyn was certainly doing that. I almost liked his music in spite of myself."

Donald Shaw

"The sheer, breathtaking brilliance of Martyn Bennett was the shot in the arm that Scottish music needed to send it rocketing, supercharged, into the 21st century."

John Byrne

"You have achieved what I hoped you were going to achieve, which was to bring the old to the new, and you have bloody done it."

Sheila Stewart

"If he were still here, on the one hand Martyn might well have laughed at such lofty language; on the other he'd have seen it as no more than his due. He relished puncturing pretension just as he espoused the grandest artistic ideals; was as capable of deep humility as he was of audacious ambition."

Sue Wilson

Anonimus

LATEST MARTYN BENNETT INFORMATION

AYE: MARTYN BENNETT

AYE: Martyn BennettA new compilation of Martyn's music has been released. MORE INFO

GLOBAL GATHERING

THE STORY BEHIND THE COVERThe work of musician and composer Martyn Bennett. MORE INFO

HALLAIG

Hallaig"I am delighted that you would like to use it in your work.". MORE INFO

Sheila Stewart - A National Treasure

Sheila Stewart - A National TreasureBorn on July 7, 1937 in a stable that belonged... MORE INFO

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