Performers
Mischa Macpherson
Scotland
Winner of the ‘BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award’ and ‘MG Alba Scots Trad Music Award’ for Gaelic Singer of the Year, Mischa Macpherson is “one of the most exciting and fully rounded talents to emerge from the Scottish scene in many a year” (Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2). Having grown up immersed in the distinctive culture of the Outer Hebrides, she unearthed her love for music and Gaelic at a very early age, and it is these influences that the singer now presents with clarity and tenderness to audiences around the world. Mischa has toured across Asia, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Scandinavia, Switzerland and the UK and performed to crowds as large as 20,000 (Fairport’s Cropredy Convention).
Massively nurtured and encouraged by organisations such as Fèis Rois in her early career, her music soared to the forefront of the UK’s wider musical audience after live sessions on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 3 and she has since made several TV performances, including with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, she was chosen to represent the UK at the G20 Summit in India and sang in the Gaelic language for invited global politicians in Varanasi, India. Highly regarded as a collaborator, Mischa has also performed and worked alongside internationally acclaimed artists such as Carlos Núñez Muñoz (Galicia); Suraj and Chand Khan (Lahore, Pakistan); and Martyn Bennett’s GRIT Orchestra.
Laurie Huggett
CORNWALL
Dr. Laurie Huggett, a writer, singer, and academic from Penwith, explores the relationship between language and landscape through music, film, and writing. Her work engages with how stories and sounds shape our connection to wild environments.
She has performed across the South West, published internationally, and had poetry films screened at the Hypatia Trust Women in Word Festivals. She was awarded a Endelienta Arts Cornish Language residency in 2023. Her academic work focuses on literature, culture, and rurality. Currently, she coordinates the Gwedhen Project, using Cornish language to explore connections with trees, people, and landscapes in Cornwall.
Julgī Stalte
Latvia
Julgī Stalte is a guardian of Livonian traditions, singer and musician from an ancient Livonian family, who keep the sound of the Livonian language alive.
Her musical activities range from Stalti family traditions, to Skandinieki, and from solo projects to traditional master classes.
Annie baylis
Cornwall
Multi award-winning singer-songwriter & multi-instrumentalist, renowned for her unwavering authenticity, Annie is a composer of honest, original folk songs. Through stories and experience, she powerfully captures the reality of existence in 21st Century Britain.
Annie has composed an EP of songs in the Cornish Language, covering political, socio-economic and philosophical topics, including: general strike, saving the NHS & Cornish and broader Celtic connections to culture.
Having recently won the International Pan Celtic Song Competition (2023) in Carlow, Ireland with the song Oll An Dra (Run the Show), 2024 is set to be an exciting year seeing the band release a new record and tour a live set nationally and internationally, with concerts at International Pan Celtic Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival and Lorient International Celtic Festival.
tricia salt
Cornwall
Tricia Salt is an artist and performer based in South East Cornwall. Her practice draws songs, linocuts, and paintings from materials and impressions of the Cornish coastline.
As part of 2023’s Endelienta Arts Cornish Language Residency she contributed poems, large scale drawings and collaborative performances inspired by the setting, and in 2024 she appeared in Cornish language film – acting in Poll Pri, and writing and performing the closing music for Konin.
LE CARROUJE
Brittany
Le Carrouje will be visiting from Brittany for this year’s festival. The band features diatonic accordian, guitar and bombarde which is a traditional Breton instrument belonging to the oboe or shawm family.
Group leader Claude Le Baron is a well-renowned bombarde player in Brittany, who has created numerous teaching resources for the instrument.
They are joined by expert dance leader Marie Hélène who will be delivering workshops both in the commonly seen fest noz social dances, and the lesser known regional dances of Brittany.
Fèis Rois
Scotland
Visiting the festival from Scotland in 2024 are Freya Taylor (piano and fiddle), Amy Harrison (fiddle and Highland dance) and Eoin Cumming (Gaelic singer, accordion and guitar) from the Fèis Rois Ceilidh Trail programme.
Fèis Rois established its successful Ceilidh Trail in Ross-shire in 2000. Following the success of the Ross-shire Ceilidh Trail, Fèis Rois started a National Ceilidh Trail for Scotland in 2012. This project has since gone from strength-to-strength and provides opportunities for young musicians from across Scotland to perform in venues across the whole of Scotland and further afield.
Cornwall youth choirs
Cornwall
The phrase “Onen hag oll” lies at the heart of the Cornwall Youth Choir, emphasizing unity and collective purpose.
The Cornwall Youth Choir family (CYC) comprises four graduated choirs that meet regularly across Cornwall. These choirs provide opportunities for children as young as four and young people up to the age of 25, each with varying levels of experience. Within CYC, there exists a framework for musical progression, fostered in a vocally nurturing environment of inclusion, mutual respect and celebrating sense of place.
CYC singers recognize their role in drawing attention to local issues affecting young people. They focus on protecting the local environment (for example, their costumes are made of recycled fabrics!) and promoting positive youth mental health through their choral community and network. Their repertoire is thoughtfully chosen to align with their values while maintaining musical motivation and interest across a wide range of new musical influences and genres.
Dawnswyr Tawerin
Wales
Dawnswyr Tawerin are from Swansea. Tawerin literally translates as the ‘folk of Swansea’. Tawerin was founded in 1975 by former members of the highly successful Swansea University. The team meets weekly in Hendy, and regularly competes at the National Eisteddfod and the Cerdd Dant Festival.
Tawerin’s costume is based on the traditional patterns and Welsh wool flannel material of the region. The dance repertoire includes the elegant court dances of the 18th and 19th centuries, complex social and community dances and the boisterous and colourful fair dances, which were once common and so individual to Wales. The musicians play both original and specifically composed Welsh music to complement their performances.
Cobweb crew
Cornwall
Cobweb Crew were formed in April 2021 as a relief from lockdown.
mike o’connor & Barbara Griggs
CORNWALL
Mike O’Connor (OBE) and Barbara Griggs have been delighting audiences with evocative storytelling with music for many years. Their ‘Return to Lyonesse’, won a British Award for Storytelling Excellence: ‘a storytelling BAFTA’. They have headlined at Sidmouth, Whitby, Festival at the Edge, and many more folk and storytelling festivals. At Lowender 2023, the duo performed the epic ‘The Prophecy of Merlin’ to huge acclaim, and the show is still touring UK.
This year they invite listeners of all ages to join them in the unique and celebrated world of Cornish folklore, where piskeys steal your socks, giants stride over the hills, knockers startle credulous miners, and mermaids sing to wide-eyed fishermen. It’s fun for all the family.
David bickley
Ireland
OLD GODS is a film project that uses the ancient Cornish track way, The Tinners Way, as a narrative thread. We encounter monuments, myths, and memories, shaped by geology, industry, and culture. The project combines film, music, and sound to create an immersive experience that explores the connections between the past and the present, the natural and the supernatural, the physical and the spiritual.
In Sean Kane’s opinion (Wisdom of the Mythtellers 1998) “old gods do not die but have found refuge in the trees and rivers” — so is it just that we have stopped listening to their stories? If so this film might help us listen.
Produced and directed by award-winning Irish based filmmaker David Ian Bickley (The Celtic Songlines, The Man Who Shot Beckett).
