News

Belfast International Arts Festival returns from 6 October to 7 November with headliners Glen Hansard and The Great Irish Songbook, featuring legendary Irish folk group Dervish, alongside Brian Kennedy, Cara Dillon, Karen Matheson, Eddi Reader and Belfast’s own Open Arts Community Choir.

Watch the full concert that Pentangle recorded for Belgian TV in 1972, prior to the release of Solomon’s Seal, featuring the original lineup of Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Danny Thompson and Terry Cox.

A Celebration of Sidmouth Folk Festival is now in full swing in the East Devon seaside town, but there’s a feast of exclusive online concerts and workshops to get involved with too.

Watch Christy Moore performing ‘Quiet Desperation’ live at The Point Theatre, Dublin in 2006. The song which was written by Floyd Red Crow Westerman also featured on his 1985 album ‘Ordinary Man’ on which Enya provided backing vocals.

In partnership with Cambridge Folk Festival, BFI curators William Fowler and Vic Pratt have put together a selection of folk-related films to watch for free on the BFI website including documentaries featuring The Watersons, Kathryn Tickell, Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull and more.

Filmed at Nine Stones Close on Harthill Moor, Derbyshire, watch ‘The Grey Ladies’, the beautiful new video and moving single from “Words of a Fiddler’s Daughter” featuring Adam Summerhayes and Murray Grainger of improv folk duo The Ciderhouse Rebellion and poet and wordsmith Jessie Summerhayes.

Jon Boden announces two more dates for his “Last Mile Home” tour. He also has a Songwriting Retreat in September and will perform with Eliza Carthy as a duo for the first time at London’s iconic Union Chapel for a special Wassail celebration in December.

Seaside is the latest single from London born, Nashville based Spencer Cullum, taken from his debut solo album, Spencer Cullum’s Coin Collection. “…a very quintessential English folk record, but with really good Nashville players…”.

Towesey Festival cancel this year’s ‘Pint-sized Towersey’ which was set to run next month. “We have worked our socks off to try and make it happen but as a small independent festival, we cannot continue to take the risks we have been fearing all year.”

New York native, P.J. O’Connor releases his new single and video for ‘Summer Squall’…a story of finding appreciation for those rare moments when we are neither worried about the future nor frustrated with the disappointments of the past.

English folk trio Leveret, featuring Andy Cutting on melodeon, Sam Sweeney on fiddle and Rob Harbron on concertina, head out on the road this October for a series of tour dates in celebration of their Variations Live album.

Broadside Hacks is a new collective derived from a group of like-minded musicians with a wild and lustrous curiosity for traditional, radical folk heritage. Featuring Katy J Pearson, Pixx, Junior Brother, Lankum, Sorry, Yorkston Thorne Khan, Blaenavon, Shovel Dance Collective, Brigid Mae Power and more.