In February, we shared a live session with Amy Hollinrake, a South-East London-based singer songwriter whose work draws on her influence and affinity with women’s experiences presented in folklore, poetry and literature. She picked up the Bert Jansch award in 2018 and was awarded an EFDSS grant in 2021 to create new work of contemporary cultural relevance for women’s voices.
From that same live session, recorded at Beckenham Place, here she is performing ‘A House Besieged’, once again supported by her multi-talented band.
She tells us: “The song is based on a short story by American author Lydia Davis* that both haunted and inspired me. I composed it on the dulcimer and then Joseph Perkins made it come to life on the guitar. Evie Hilyer-Ziegler added beautiful harmonies and violin, and Freddie Willetts, Bertie Atkinson and Ben Smith filled that space with atmosphere.”
Amy recently joined Peggy Seeger, Fay Hield, Rachel Newton, Grace Petrie, Angeline Morrison and Anne Martin on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour looking at women and the tradition of folk music. You can listen again here.
Web: https://www.amyhollinrake.com/
*“In a House Besieged,” from Lydia Davis’s first collection Break It Down (1986).