The Music of Lady Nairne showcases some of Scotland’s most popular music by a woman whose name is all but forgotten. Her songs include Charlie is my Darling, The Rowan Tree, Will ye no come back again?” and many more.

Carolina Oliphant, (later Lady Nairne) lived from August 16, 1766 to October 26, 1845 and is one of scotland's most famous songwriters. Well, that's not strictly true. It is her songs that have become famous, but her name would not be recognized by many, even by Scots, despite the fact that her music is sure to be heard wherever Scots gather and the pipes played.

Born seven years after Robert Burns in the "auld hoose" of Gask, Perthshire, she was descended from an ancient family which settled in Perthshire in the 13th century, and could boast of kinship with the royal race of Scotland. Her father, Laurence Oliphant, was one of the foremost supporters of the Jacobite cause.

Carolina is the feminine equivalent of Carl or Charles. Thus, Carolina was named after Charles, but not because it was a name that ran in the family. Instead, she was named after none other than Bonnie Prince Charlie himself -- whom her father, being a staunch Jacobite, greatly admired. Hardly surprising then that Bonnie Prince Charlie features in many of her songs.

In her late teens, Carolina persuaded her brother Lawrence to purchase the works of Robert Burns and became fascinated with his poetry and his skill at replacing the words of traditional Scots melodies thereby transforming them from the mundane to the memorable.

Once married, she moved near Edinburgh and began her career as a composer in secret, even to her husband. Remember, at that time it was considered totally out of the question for a lady of her station to even consider “the queer trade of song writing.”

Eventually her works were published in a book called the "Scottish Minstrel" but under the pseudonym of a Mrs. Bogan of Bogan. Donning an old brown cloak and with a heavy veil, she would deliver her work to her publisher Mr. Purdie, who, if he recognized her at all, certainly kept it to himself.

Soon the popularity of her work took hold and it was not long before her audience could detect the same direct simplicity and poetic feeling expressed by Robert Burns himself. It is strange indeed that two individuals whose stations in life were at opposite ends of the social spectrum should have achieved immortality in the common bond of music and song.

For more information please telephone David Hunter at 416-699-9942, or by email at davidhunter@scottishstudies.com

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