Nimble fingers drew playful notes from the two fiddles, and smiles lit up on the faces of Marianne Campbell and Clare McLaughlin as they watched the audience tap their feet to the catchy rhythm of a Scottish melody.

Clare and Marianne have cuddled their fiddles as babies and then poured out their hearts onto the strings. Air tingled around Malcolm Stitt's bouzouki and John Morran's guitar, and Rory Campbell's bagpipe breathed sonorous magic.

For an hour and a half, Scotland's spirit pervaded the heart of Sofia as Deaf Shepherd performed live.

"We love the thrill of playing live for people," fiddler Marianne said. "It's all about energy on stage, and getting a good reaction from the crowd is amazing."

The young Scottish band have played to sellout audiences at leading Celtic music gatherings such as folk festivals in Cambridge, Edinburgh and Shetland, the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow and the Edinburgh Fringe.

For the opening of the new building of the British Council in Sofia, they played in the garden at 7 Krakra Street on October 19. "One of the organizers had seen us perform live in Glasgow a few years ago and they liked us," said Clare, explaining how the band landed in Sofia. "Now we are here, and it's fantastic," she added.

Eight years of shared love for Celtic music, two studio albums, Ae Spark O' Nature's Fire (1996) and Synergy (1997), a flock of enthusiastic fans and numerous laudatory press reviews bear witness to the success of Deaf Shepherd, who were voted among six of the best at Edinburgh Festival 2001.

"Success is measured by the enjoyment of the audience," Marianne said. "Vibrant" and "heartfelt" is how she described Deaf Shepherd's music. In her view, Celtic tradition is one of the most popular folk music traditions in the world because people can understand it and feel moved by it.

Celtic folklore lives in the lands once inhabited by the tribes of the Celts. Clare explained that "Celtic" refers to the folk culture of the people in Scotland, Ireland, Britanny, Galicia and Cornwall - regions in Great Britain, France and Spain.

Scotland's folk culture has been kept alive for generations and today it has reached the members of Deaf Shepherd through their families. Malcolm's father was an accordion player with his own ceilidh band. Marianne and Rory are sister and brother. Their grandfather played the fiddle, and their father is a piper and singer of Gaelic songs.

Deaf Shepherd's repertoire also includes songs in Gaelic. "You won't understand the lyrics of this one even if you speak English. I don't understand them either," singer John said jokingly between songs during the band's gig in Sofia.

But music is a universal language, according to Clare, and the audience needs but a few chords to catch the mood of a song about the beauty of Scotland or a merry drunkard's tune.

"I think people will always want to hear good folk music, even with so many other types of modern music around," Marianne said. According to her, Deaf Shepherd's music is not so much about a specific message as about "expressing feelings and producing music that can affect or move people.

"The main thing about folk music is that you can easily meet up and play with other musicians without having to have specialized equipment - you only need your instrument," she added. "That makes it really sociable and accessible."

Perhaps due to this feeling of community among all Celtic folk musicians none of them is content within the confines of a band. All members of Deaf Shepherd have other musical projects.

Clare and Marianne have a four-piece project called cMc. Rory and Malcolm have recorded two CDs in which they draw on traditional music but add a more contemporary feel to it. Rory is also in a band called The Old Blind Dogs, and Malcolm is in The Boys of the Lough.

John is currently putting poems from his hometown of Muirkirk to his own melodies, which will result in a solo album. Percussionist and bodhran player Mark Maguire, who couldn't make it for the concert in Sofia last week, does session work and teaches.

"That doesn't leave much time for other hobbies apart from work," Marianne said.

Besides, some members of the band have other jobs. Clare works as a Scottish traditional music administrator, Mark is a quantity surveyor, and John is an environmental health officer. Marianne has a business writing software for schools and hospitals.

In their busy daily life, the six musicians have found time to pay a visit to the studio again. "We've almost finished recording our third album, which should go on sale towards the end of the year," Marianne says. "We hope to do a lot more touring to promote it," she adds.