STEWART HARDY
Stewart Hardy is one of the most exciting fiddle players in the North East of England. Love for traditional music shines through his repertoire and influences his own compositions. He was Folkworks’ Artist in residence for the national Year of the Artist millennium project and lead the SNAP05 project with Eiwor Kjellberg from Sweden and Yann Dour from Brittany. He is a core tutor on Newcastle University’s Folk degree course.
Stewart spent six years as an influential member of the very popular John Wright Band, performing throughout Europe. He has also performed throughout the world playing traditional folk, pop, rock, jazz, country and western swing music. He has partnered many other musicians (Jed Grimes, George Welch, Frank McLaughlin) in Folk Clubs and festivals the length and breadth of Europe. Stewart is much in demand as a session player and fiddle tutor, teaching at Folkworks summer schools, Strings at Whitney, Celtic Connections and other projects throughout the country including his own workshops organised through JSARTS. Try Googling the name, you’ll be surprised at how many CDs he has guested on
Issy Emeney
Originally from Suffolk, Issy moved to Somerset in 2003, and has settled very happily at the foot of the Mendip Hills in Cheddar with husband David and their three daughters.
Issy’s trio with guitarist husband David, and cellist Kate Riaz perform at folk clubs and festivals all over the country. Their CD Legends & Lovers was recorded on the Wild Goose Label and they are currently recording a second .
Issy is acquiring a well deserved reputation as a very good writer of tunes and songs in the traditional vein. Her tunes, whether straight dance tunes or longer pieces that tell a story, are invariably ‘a bit different’ with strong and beautiful melodies. Some of them have been used for television
Issy is a very experienced tutor, including for Melodeons at Witney (Dave Townsend introduced her as ‘one of’ foremost female players!) She has run workshops at many major folk festivals and for Folk South West, TAPS and at privately organised events. She also teaches one to one from her home in Somerset.
Not a lot of people know this, but Issy is a great flatfoot dancer! She runs a regular class near her home in Cheddar, and teaches at festivals and workshops wherever her feet take her.
Click on this link to see Issy Emeney Flatfooting
Kate Lissauer
Kate Lissauer, currently resident in England, is a highly regarded exponent of American old-time country music. Kate has been performing and teaching for many years, and brings her knowledge and love of mountain, bluegrass and folk music to life through her passionate instrumental and vocal style.
Kate’s musical history includes playing with one of Maryland’s champion string bands, Rev. Chip and the Moonbrides, a busy performance, step-dance and square dance band, touring as a member of the legendary Steptones Appalacian cloggers, who helped to bring American step-dancing to the UK, and working as a member of Scotland’s Celtic-American fusion, The Caledonia Ramblers.
Kate began her career as a champion fiddler in her home state of Maryland, and is also an expert clawhammer and old-time three-finger banjo picker, a guitarist, and an excellent singer. Her solo performances range through a great variety of music, including old ballads upon which she has placed her own stamp, blues and gospel songs, hard-driving fiddle tunes, and one of her trademarks – fiddle-backed songs.
She presently performs as a solo artist and with her band, Buffalo Gals, and her appearances include folk clubs and folk festivals, international music and dance festivals, and concerts of American Country music and Bluegrass.
David Oliver
including the acclaimed Folkworks Summer Schools. His regular pub sessions in Hexham are immensely popular and his ceilidh band, The Hedgehog’s Skin, is in regular demand. He’s the author of English Folk Tunes for Accordion (Schott 2008), and creator of the best-selling Folkworks Session Collection. Since 2002 David has been chair of FolkArts England, and he also lectures on Folk Music Education at the Universities of Newcastle and Durham. His workshops are always lively, cheerful and purposeful, designed to give increased confidence and enjoyment to participants at all levels of experience.
Gina Le Faux
Jon Boden, Gina Le Faux and Will Pound at the Boardwalk In Sheffield. Photo Bryan Ledgard
Gina Le Faux is an acclaimed fiddle player. She has spent a lifetime perfecting her skills on fiddle, mandolin and guitar and has been teaching these instruments for over 30 years. Born in Liverpool, she was a pupil of traditional fiddle player and singer James Carmichael of Ballymena and learned her early music in Merseyside. Gina has been a member of many of England’s and Scotland’s top bands, Hom Bru, Shegui, Red Shift and the Tannahill Weavers, and she has toured, recorded and performed with Dave Swarbrick, John Kirkpatrick, Martin Simpson Andy Cutting and Sam Lee, to name but a few. She has led workshops for Folkworks, Folk South West, The Yorkshire Dales Workshop and Hands On Music and also at numerous festivals. She is now based in West Yorkshire where she teaches traditional fiddle and mandolin and she continues to be in demand as a guest musician both for live concerts and recordings.
As well as her love of English, Irish and Scottish traditional music she has a passion for 18th century dance music and swing.
Gina also makes and restores Violins and Mandolins in her workshop
“I have known Gina for many years and her playing has never ceased to thrill me. Her understanding of the fiddle, its place in the tradition, and the many different styles that enrich these islands are bolstered by enviable technique and practical knowledge of the instrument.” Dave Swarbrick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_CfgAh6Nws Fiddles On Fire Gina Le Faux solo
Chris Haigh
Chris started playing violin at the age of seven Professionally he started playing fiddle with progressive rock band Speedy Bears and jazz-rock band Inner Ear, just as punk was at its height in the mid 70′s. He progressed through traditional folk and bluegrass. Chris then embarked upon a long and illustrious career as a side-man in a hundred anonymous function bands.
Over the past fifteen years Chris played and recorded with a motley crew of musicians, from Pop artists such as Alison Moyet, Michael Ball, The Quireboys, and the sadly missed teen idols Steps (He is proud to have played on 5,6,7,8..recently voted one of the UK’s most hated singles of all time!), the off-the page trip-hop of Morcheeba to the Goth-Rock of All About Eve and the chicken-head biting rock excesses of Rolf Harris, David Soul and James Galway.
Chris play Indian jazz fusion with Jyotsna Srikanth; Chris got into swing working with Ricky Cool and his Western Swing Allstars, with Diz Disley, Le Jazz, The Hot Club of London, Robin Katz, the QuecumBar Allstars and the Kimbara Brothers. Chris explored jazzgrass with my own group Spice Trade, and the further limits of blugrass with the Daily Planet, Southern Exposure and The Coal Porters. Chris played Jewish Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs with Stewart Curtis, Gilad Atzamon, Ben Morris, Dave Bitelli, Danny Shine’s Neshama, Yuval Havkin’s Kedma Band, The Gilev Showband, Eli Tamir, the Matzoh Boys and Klezmania. Chris played his way into Russian and East European folk playing with Vladimir Asriev, Igor Outkine, Serguei Pachnine and Zvuk Bazaar. Chris played Indian Jazz fusion withS. Harikumar; Chris filled in for NetiVaan with Companions of The Rosy Hours (including playing Paul McCartney’s Christmas party!) and with Bill Caddick’s Urban Legend. Chris sampled some Scandinavian avant garde with Andrew Cronshaw, Mike Adcock and the Norwegian band Utla, and played my way into Indian film music with Diwana Arts. Chris played medieval banquets with Dragonsfire; Scottish ceilidhs with Kafoozalum; tried some East African Jive with the Rift Valley Raiders; mixed celtic and jazz with Carmina blues and celtic with Brendan Power, blues and Cajun with Short Fuse; blues and folk with Jenny Beeching , blues and more blues with Hans Theesink; Mexican and Salsa with Trio Azteca and Los Charros; country and rock with Debbie Nunn, Crazy Hearts,Tender Mercies, Audio Murphy and The Brokovitch Band; Country and Irish with Two Loaves Eddie and Acoustica: Zydeco and Rock and Roll with Chris Jagger ; Zydeco and Old Time with Gumbolala; Chris played an Irish wedding with Cara Dillon and Davey Spillane, and recorded some tasteful Irish dance tunes with Shamrock (their 3-million selling “Tell Me Ma” was dubbed worst single of the decade in the NME! Chris play in the rock covers bands Rollercoaster and Cheesecake, adding delicate and tasteful violin parts to such gems as Highway to Hell and Teenage Dirtbag.
In 1998 Chris was credited as “featured musician” on the BBC series “Billy Connolly-Journey to the edge of the World’- where the fabulous scenery of the arctic circle was portrayed with bluegrass, country and celtic music.
Among the more unusual and entertaining gigs over the years have been playing a Burns Night in Iceland, playing Russian music for the Mafia in Beiruit, playing for Princess Anne’s birthday party: playing Italian mandolin for a marriage proposal in Rome, playing for cossack dancers in Elton John’s back garden, playing for a line-dance in the French Alps, and doing a Jewish wedding in a pine forest in Athens. Early in 2010 Chris appeared in an episode of the sitcom My Family as a Mariachi musician.
Fiddle Teaching
Chris has developed an easy way to teach improvisation, and gives workshops in schools, at festivals and every year at the London Fiddlers Convention. Chris has done educational tours for Folkworks, and was recently involved in a long series of school performances by Mike Adcock’s Last Dance Orchestra, funded by the national Lottery. Chris has taught jazz violin at Middlesex, Newcastle,and Brunel Universities and Truro College, and have been booked as tutor at “Hands On” fiddle weekends (Fiddles@Witney), and at the Wigmore Hall. Workshop subjects include improvisation, swing, klezmer fiddle, East European fiddle, Western Swing and composition of fiddle tunes.