Fiona MacGillivray, the lead singer of The Cottars, is also a pianist, bodhràn player, stepdancer, harpist and songwriter. An acclaimed tin whistler, she once studied in a summer session with Ireland's Brid O'Donahue of Miltown Malbay, County Clare.

As singers, Fiona and her brother, Ciarán, are known on three continents for their show-stopping arrangement of The Cottars' anthem, "The Briar & The Rose".

Fiona was only thirteen when she (and her bandmates) earned both a standing ovation and an ECMA before a crowd of 10,000 on the nationally-broadcast ECMA Awards Telecast in 2002.