The Isle of Man was well-represented in a major international music award ceremony by two leading trad-folk bands earlier this month.

The Manx folk pop fusion group Mec Lir were nominated for a top award and two local musicians, Adam Rhodes and Tom Callister, performed at the 2021 Scots Trad Music Awards, which took place on at the Engine Works venue, in Glasgow on Saturday.

Mec Lir, which feature fiddle player Tom and bouzouki player Adam, alongside Manx composer David Kilgallon and Scottish drummer Greg Barry, were nominated in the ’best album’ category for their latest release ’Live Wire’, where they were narrowly beaten by trad guitarist Kris Drever, who won with his latest album ’Where The World Is Thin’.

The award was decided by a public vote, and more than 180,000 from around the world people took part in the poll

’Live Wire’ came out earlier this year and went straight to the top of the world music iTunes charts on the day of its release, whilst also reaching a respectable position in the general sales charts.

Although the group were unable to attend the awards in full, due to other commitments, Tom and Adam also made an appearance with their other group, Imar.

The multi-national five piece, also featuring members Mohsen Amini, from Scotland, Adam Brown, from England and Ryan Murphy, from Ireland, made their return to live performing by closing out the ceremony, even though they were not nominated for an award themselves.

The group have not performed since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

The awards ceremony was broadcast live on BBC Alba and is available to watch via BBC iPlayer.

Mec Lir will be in Scotland at the end of January for a showcase concert at the major Celtic Connections festival, where they will play at the St Luke’s venue, along with many of the guest musicians who appeared on Live Wire, including Calum Stewart, Sarah Markey, Ciaran Ryan and Paddy Callaghan, plus support from the Kinnaris Quartet.

Both Mec Lir and Imar have aso been added to the Lorient Festival line up for 2022.