MNS FESTIVALS supplement (Jan22-24)

MUSIC FESTIVALS - MUSIC FESTIVALS - MUSIC FESTIVALS - MUSIC FESTIVALS
Orkney Folk Festival to return
to full-scale live event in May
Orkney :: 26-29 May :: www.orkneyfolkfestival.com
Stromness is set to
come alive to folk
music from around
the world once
again, as the team
behind the Orkney
Folk Festival have
announced a return
to a full-scale live
event this spring.
In the first wave of line-up announcements, 24
acts have been unveiled for the 39th outing of
the award-winning festival. Musicians and
singers from throughout Scotland will join artists
from England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
Canada, USA and India in appearing alongside
scores of home-grown Orcadian artists in venues
throughout Stromness and the Orkney mainland,
over 26-29 May.
This year’s live festival will be the first since
2019, and follows two highly successful digital
editions that brought a worldwide online
audience to Orkney during the pandemic. A
number of artists who were originally scheduled
to appear in 2020 - some of whom featured onscreen
in 2021’s Virtually Orkney Folk Festival -
have been rebooked and will now take to the
stage this May.
Leading Scottish artists Karine Polwart,
Skerryvore and Blazin’ Fiddles will join
international favourites at this year’s live return,
including Canadian duo Madison Violet and
Norwegian/Swedish firebrands SVER, as well as
globetrotting Orcadian artists Fara, Gnoss, The
Chair and Saltfishforty performing on home soil.
Festival audiences are set to enjoy a programme
of stellar Scottish talent this year, including
trailblazers Talisk (recently seen ringing in the
bells in front of millions on BBC One’s Hogmanay
2021), four-time Scots Singer of the Year,
Siobhan Miller, celebrated West Highland
champions Dàimh, BBC Radio 2 award-winning
Gaelic smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul, and
Scottish Americana troubadour Dean Owens with
his new band, The Sinners.
LATEST NEWS ABOUT TICKETS @ www.orkneyfolkfestival.com/tickets/
Bands such as Skerryvore (pictured here at
Barrowland Ballroom) hope to bring scenes like this
back to Orkney after a two year break due to Covid
:: www.facebook.com/skerryvore
Shetland fiddler Kevin Henderson will appear in
a new transatlantic partnership with celebrated
US pianist Neil Pearlman, whilst James Yorkston,
Jon Thorne and Suhail Yusuf Khan’s
groundbreaking fusion of Scottish song with jazz
and Indian classical sarangi will also bring
acclaimed international collaborations to Orkney
Folk Festival stages. Amongst Scandinavia’s
most virtuosic folk musicians, Denmark’s Helene
Blum and Harald Haugaard Band are set to
return to Stromness, as are further festival
favourites including Yorkshire-based singersongwriter
Edwina Hayes, and The Peter Wood
Shetland Dance Band.
Completing the bumper Scottish contingent are
two exciting groups new to the festival;
freewheeling trio The Langan Band, who
embrace Celtic, Roma, bluegrass, flamenco,
swing and punk influences, and contemporary
fiddle, accordion, song, guitar and harp fourpiece
Tannara,
For almost four decades, the Orkney Folk
Festival has been famed for presenting the
islands’ own folk musicians and singers
alongside world-leading visiting artists, with
further Orcadian acts announced so far including
the piano and fiddle pairing of Jennifer Austin
and Eric Linklater, and Orkney song duo Sarah
Jane Gibbon and Emma Grieve.
Award-winning Orcadian fiddle and mandolin
player, Graham Rorie is set to be joined by an
all-star band in staging The Orcadians of Hudson
Bay; a suite of music inspired by islanders who
travelled from Stromness to The Hudson’s Bay
Company in Northern Canada during the 18th
and 19th centuries. Following a sell out debut at
Celtic Connections 2020, the show makes its
way home to the Orkney Folk Festival 2022.
A highlight of the festival in recent years, the
festival’s all-Orcadian multi-generational
collaboration, The Gathering will return,
celebrating a decade at the heart of the festival
programme, whilst the annual Fiddlers’ Rally will
return for its 39th Sunday afternoon outing.
As well as shows taking place in multiple venues
throughout the festival’s hometown of
Stromness across the weekend, concerts are
also set to take place in Birsay, Deerness,
Finstown, Harray, Holm, Kirkwall and Sandwick
www.musicnewsscotland.wordpress.com
as the voluntary-run event makes its longawaited
live return.
Looking ahead to the festival’s live return,
Orkney Folk Festival Producer, Bob Gibbon
said: “After a two year sojourn into the world of
online festivals, we are more than excited to be
planning a full, physical festival. Live music has
taken a severe hit these last couple of years, but
there is nothing quite like sitting face to face
watching amazing musicians making amazing
music.
“The spirit of the festival will return in full to
Stromness and the rest of Orkney, and I can't
wait to see the smiling faces from Stromnessians
and visitors alike. Orkney benefits so much from
this festival, both culturally and economically,
and I must say that the support that we have
had from local businesses, and the enthusiasm
for the festival to come back, has been
genuinely heartwarming. Everyone is keen to get
back to normal and let their hair down. Hopefully
this festival will kick start the Orkney tourism
economy and reinvigorate the musical landscape
once more.”
The 39th Orkney Folk Festival programme will be
published in the spring, with tickets due to go on
sale in the coming months. Festival Patronage,
offering advance booking and discounted
merchandise, will be on sale shortly/
For further information, head to www.
orkneyfolkfestival.com and follow the festival on
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. A sampler
playlist of the 2022 festival line-up is also
available on Spotify.
www.orkneyfolkfestival.com
www.twitter.com/HebCelt
www.facebook.com/orkneyfolkfestival