Freeland Barbour comes from Glen Fincastle near Pitlochry, in the heart of the Highlands of Scotland, and has been a very well-known figure on the Scottish music scene for many years.  He is co-founder of 2 hugely successful ceilidh bands, his current band The Occasionals, and The Wallochmor Ceilidh Band, and he has also been a member of The Ghillies and Silly Wizard.

Well-known as a solo performer, composer, and radio and record producer, he is a former music producer with BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio nan Gaidheal.

A regular on radio and TV, he has 12 solo recordings, 7 with The Occasionals, 5 with The Wallochmor Ceilidh Band, 2 with The Ghillies, 1 with fiddler Iain Fraser, and 3 books of compositions including the mammoth 2-volume 'The Music and the Land'.  He has also over the years produced a huge number of commercial releases for a wide variety of different artists, and an even larger number of radio programmes.  He also has long had a strong interest in Scandinavian folk music and has played regularly with Faroese-based band Spaelimenninir and their pianist Kristian Blak.

Though a multi-instrumentalist, Freeland's main instruments are the accordion (piano and 5-row) and piano, and he was the first accordion tutor on the BA Degree course in Scottish Traditional Music at The Royal Scottish Conservatoire in Glasgow.  Other teaching assignments have been numerous, particularly for the Folkworks organisation in the north of England, and Freeland also plays for Ceilidh and Old-Time Dance workshops primarily with dance teachers Jessie Stuart and Sheila McCutcheon.

He has done extensive work composing and producing TV and film soundtracks, and designs his own accordions that have proved successful for 3 different Italian manufacturers, Pigini, Zero Sette, and Brandoni.  Also in the past he has owned and run his own record label, sound hire company, and music and book publishing company.  He was also a founder member of The Scottish Record Industry Association.

Pride of place on the business front goes to the award-winning Castlesound Studios which Freeland bought in 1998 and managed thereafter.  Based in East Lothian this facility has been one of the leading independent recording studios in the UK for a long time and in 2024 celebrated its 50th year, the 4th-longest running independent studio in the UK.   Under the current owner of the business, Stuart Hamilton, the studio continues the high standards and reputation as a national asset set by the original owner Calum Malcolm and then carried on by Freeland and Stuart.

Freeland is also a writer and is currently a trustee of the Berwick-upon-Tweed Literary Festival.  He has served on various committees over the years, notably for The Scottish Arts Council and the new National Centre for Music in Edinburgh.