SAY Award Winner announced

Fergus McCreadie has won this year’s Scottish Album of the Year Award with his album Forest Floor. It’s the first time a jazz artist has won the prestigious award which includes a £20,000 prize. Released on Edition Records to instant critical acclaim, Forest Floor topped the UK Jazz & Blues charts, prompting sold-out performances at Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh and Love Supreme this summer.

Fergus was nominated and performed at the Mercury Prize ceremony recently and has been described as “one of the most exciting young jazz pianists on the world stage.” The award confirms the SAY as a prize that throws up surprises and defies convention.

The album is a blend of Jazz and Scottish folk music which feels both contemporary and grounded. Listen to it here …

McCreadie, Scottish Album of the Year Award Winner for 2022 said: “I’m absolutely honoured and thrilled that Forest floor has been selected as this year’s Scottish Album of the Year. I’m really proud of how the trio comes across on the record and it’s such a privilege for us to have that recognised by the SAY award panel. I’m also so excited by what this can do for Scottish Jazz – we’re the first jazz act to win the prize and I really hope we won’t be the last. Scottish jazz is full of incredible musicians and bands that I respect so much, and I really hope this will be only one step of an incredible journey for a scene which truly punches above its weight.”

The legacy of last year’s debut Modern Scottish Classic winners, Frightened Rabbit, continues through The SAY Award’s charity partnership with Tiny Changes, set up in memory of late frontman Scott Hutchinson.

Previous winners of The SAY Award include Mogwai ‘As The Love Continues’ (2021), Nova ‘Re-Up’ (2020), Auntie Flo ‘Radio Highlife’ (2019), Young Fathers ‘Cocoa Sugar’ (2018), Sacred Paws‘Strike A Match’ (2017), Anna Meredith ‘Varmints’ (2016), Kathryn Joseph ‘Bones You Have Thrown Me And Blood I’ve Spilled’ (2015), Young Fathers ‘Tape Two’ (2014), RM Hubbert‘Thirteen Lost & Found’ (2013) and the inaugural winner Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat‘Everything’s Getting Older’ (2012).