Martyn Bennett
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Martyn Bennett (February 17, 1971 – January 30, 2005) was a Scottish musician who was born in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. He was extremely influential in the evolution of modern Celtic Fusion, a blending of traditional Celtic and modern music.
He began playing bagpipes at the age of 10 and by the time he was 12 he was winning prizes at junior bagpiping competitions in Scotland. He then took up violin, piano and composing at the age of 15 at the City of Edinburgh Music School, continuing his studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 1990.
In 1993, just before graduating, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which he related to the suffocating and stressful environment of the Classical world where "enjoyment of the music [...] was out-weighed by the pressure to succeed" [1]. In 1994 he began to spend more time with his first musical love, folk and traditional, and it was not much later that he started to experiment with electronica. He performed at the world premiere party for the film Braveheart.
In 1996, he released his first self-titled album on Eclectic Records. In 1998 he released Bothy Culture, his most successful album. In 2000, just a few months after a highly acclaimed headlining set at the Cambridge Folk Festival, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
He died on January 30, 2005, following a long struggle with cancer.
[edit] Discography
- 1996 Martyn Bennett
- 1998 Bothy Culture
- 2000 Hardland (with Martin Low)
- 2001 Glen Lyon (with his mother, Margaret Bennett, on vocals)
- 2003 Grit
- 2005 Mackay's Memoirs (performed by City of Edinburgh Music School)
