Photo: Fiona Ritchie, by Keith Taylor
Thistleradio® is a catch all notion for NPR’s The Thistle & Shamrock® radio shows and archive, a Soma FM music channel, Wayfaring Strangers, and other projects of radio broadcaster and writer Fiona Ritchie.
“Fiona is the living embodiment of what is distinctive, wonderful and most valuable about public radio.”
“Scotland’s unofficial cultural ambassador to America.”
Loch Insh (by Gordon Ritchie Bon Accord Camera Club)
Based in Scotland, Fiona Ritchie MBE is an award-winning radio broadcaster, producer and writer. Her radio career began in 1981 and it grew in local station and network settings. She has produced and presented both live and recorded programs for NPR and BBC, also curating web-based content for internet radio Soma FM. Fiona is best known as the host and producer of NPR’s The Thistle & Shamrock®, an hour of music from Celtic roots, which broadcast weekly across the U.S. from 1983. In the 1990s, Fiona co-anchored NPR's July 4th live performance broadcasts, airing coast to coast in the U.S. from the National Mall in Washington, DC., and she launched the seminal radio show Celtic Connections in conjunction with BBC Radio Scotland.
Fiona has worked extensively on event production and as a concert MC everywhere from Chicago’s Grant Park to Glasgow’s Celtic Connections and Holyrood Palace. She has toured with musicians, created in-flight programming for United Airlines and provided voice overs for animations and documentaries. Fiona is an experienced fundraiser, both on and off-air, and has worked in an advisory capacity in the non-profit and arts sector, including for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, The British Council and Carnegie Hall’s Migrations: The Making of America Festival. Her writing projects have included the New York Times Best Seller "Wayfaring Strangers ~ the Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster to Appalachia" (book and CD) and also "The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to Celtic Music".
Fiona lives in Perthshire with her family and is active in community work, including serving as a trustee of the Gordon Duncan Memorial Trust, as a co-founder of the Birnam Book Festival and a Director of Climate Café®.
