Paula MacAskill: Chichester CMC 10 January 2025

Paula MacAskill at the Chichester CMC on 10th January 2025. Paula MacAskill has been surrounded by music all her life, having had lessons from the age of 5 after being given a bass accordion for Christmas. She started playing in public in 1975 when she was 8, and has been working ever since learning to play numerous instruments including cornet, tenor horn, bagpipes, guitar, clarinet and saxophone. She achieved a Grade 1 with honours at London's Trinity College of Music in 1978 and after leaving college she decided to concentrate on keyboards and accordion and also started singing. By 1990, she was gigging in a 4-piece band called Free Beer in Cyprus where her husband Aidan was stationed in the Army. In 1991, the family moved back to the UK and since 1992 Paula has lived and worked in Fort William in the Scottish Highlands concentrating on her career which has included touring with Dominic Kirwan, Joe Dolan, and Brendan Shine etc.