Fergus McCreadie

Fergus McCreadie (born 12 July 1997, Jamestown, Easter Ross) is a Scottish jazz pianist and composer. His style revolves around a fusion of contemporary jazz with Scottish folk music. He has released three albums as bandleader to date, with all three being listed for the Scottish Album of the Year Award – Turas was shortlisted in 2019, Cairn was longlisted in 2021, and Forest Floor won in 2022. Forest Floor was also nominated for the 2022 Mercury Prize, and won the Scottish Jazz Award for Best Album.

Fergus McCreadie was born 12 July 1997 in Jamestown, Easter Ross, Scotland.

While living in a house in Dollar, Clackmannanshire, McCreadie's parents paid £20 for a broken-down piano. However, he mostly practiced with a Yamaha electric piano through headphones in his bedroom after noise complaints from a neighbor. McCreadie studied jazz at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where he met bassist David Bowden and drummer Stephen Henderson, the other two players on McCreadie's three albums.

McCreadie is known for combining contemporary jazz with Scottish folk music inspired by his homeland's natural landscape. McCreadie describes this genre crossover by saying "jazz is kind of a folk music in itself. It has a lot of the characteristics, and it's grown up in a lot of the same ways." McCreadie says he is most inspired by American jazz pianist Keith Jarrett and notes his music taste as also including Glenn Gould, Martha Argerich, Oscar Peterson, McCoy Tyner, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and Mick O'Brien.

McCreadie has also won the Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year's under-17 category in 2013 and 2014, the Linda Trahan Memorial Prize University of St Andrews, and the Guy Barker Award at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

McCreadie lives in Glasgow.

• Turas (Self-release, 2018)
• Cairn (Edition Records, 2021)
• Forest Floor (Edition Records, 2022)

Singles