Richard Peter Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs. He is regarded as one of Scotland's leading singer-songwriters.
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2.
Anaïs Mitchell is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and playwright. Mitchell has released eight studio albums, including Hadestown (2010), Young Man in America (2012), Child Ballads (2013), and Anaïs Mitchell (2022).
Julie Fowlis is a Scottish folk singer and multi-instrumentalist who sings primarily in Scottish Gaelic.
Seckou Keita is a kora player and drummer from Senegal. He is one of the few champions of the lesser-known kora repertoire from Casamance in southern Senegal.
The Unthanks are an English folk group known for their eclectic approach in combining traditional English folk, particularly Northumbrian folk music, with other musical genres. Their debut album, Cruel Sister, was Mojo magazine's Folk Album of the Year in 2005. Of their subsequent albums, nine have received four or five-starred reviews in the British national press. Their album Mount the Air, released in 2015, won in the best album category in the 2016 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. In 2017 they released two albums featuring the songs and poems of Molly Drake, mother of singer-songwriter and musician Nick Drake.
The London Bulgarian Choir (LBC) is a London-based amateur choir specialising in Bulgarian folk music. Dessislava Stefanova has led the choir since its formation in 2000. Primarily a performing choir, the LBC perform around twenty concerts a year and have been involved in high-profile collaborations with British Sea Power, Doves, Orlando Gough, and Nigel Kennedy.
O'Hooley & Tidow are an English folk music duo from Yorkshire. Singer-songwriter Heidi Tidow performs and records with her wife, singer-songwriter and pianist Belinda O'Hooley, who was formerly a member of Rachel Unthank and the Winterset. O'Hooley & Tidow were nominated for Best Duo at the 2013 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Their 2016 album Shadows was given a five-star review in The Guardian, and four of their other albums, including their 2017 release WinterFolk Volume 1, have received four-star reviews in the British national press. From 2019 to 2022, their song "Gentleman Jack", from the album The Fragile, featured as the closing theme for the BBC/HBO television series Gentleman Jack. Their album Cloudheads was released on 21 April 2023.
Lucy Victoria Ward is an English singer-songwriter from Derby, England. She performs, with a voice described as expressive and powerful, traditional English folk songs as well as her own material. Three of her albums, Adelphi Has to Fly, Single Flame and I Dreamt I Was a Bird, have been critically acclaimed and have each received four-starred reviews in the British national press.
Sam Lee is a British folk singer and traditional music specialist. His debut album, Ground of its Own, was shortlisted for the 2012 Mercury Music Award. Lee performs as part of an ensemble, Sam Lee and Friends.
Breabach is a Scottish folk music band formed in 2005. In 2011, they received nominations for ‘Best Group’ at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. They won Scottish Folk Band of the Year in 2012 and Live Act of the Year in 2013 at the Scots Trad Music Awards.
Lady Maisery are an English folk vocal harmony trio composed of Hannah James, Hazel Askew and Rowan Rheingans.
Ange Hardy is an English singer, songwriter and recording artist.
Greg Russell and Ciaran Algar are a British folk music duo. Algar is a multi-instrumentalist who plays fiddle, guitar, banjo, and percussion. They won the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award in 2013, and in 2014 won the Horizon award in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. They were nominated for the Best Duo award in 2015.
Mokoomba is a Zimbabwean musical group, originally from Chinotimba township, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. The group sings in a number of languages including English, Luvale, Tonga, Nyanja, Ndebele and Shona. Mokoomba takes its name from a Tonga word that connotes deep respect for the Zambezi river and the vibrant life along its banks.
The Gloaming is the debut studio album by the contemporary Irish/American music group The Gloaming. It was released on January 20, 2014 on Real World Records, and on Brassland Records in America, Justin Time Records in Canada, and Planet Records in Australia.
Stick in the Wheel are a band with its origins in working-class East London, UK. It consists of vocalist and artist Nicola Kearey and Ian Carter, their producer, arranger and Dobro player. They bring a contemporary approach to folk music with raw minimalism, setting vocals to simple accompaniments and handclaps, along with progressive synths and beats informed by the street music of their heritage.
Jenn Butterworth is an acoustic folk guitarist and singer based in Glasgow, Scotland, who was awarded the title "Musician of the Year" at the 2019 Scots Trad Music Awards, and was nominated for the same title at the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. She was a founder member of Kinnaris Quintet, who won the Belhaven Bursary for Innovation in Scottish Music at the 2019 Scots Trad Music Awards.
Rachel Newton is a Scottish singer and harpist. As well as playing both acoustic and electric harp she also plays viola, fiddle, piano and harmonium. She performs solo as well as in the bands The Shee, The Furrow Collective and Boreas and was formerly a member of the Emily Portman Trio. She was a member of the Lost Words Spell Songs project and is a co-founder of The Bit Collective, a group campaigning for equality in folk music.
Iona Fyfe is a Scottish singer from Huntly, Aberdeenshire known for singing Scots folk songs and ballads. In 2016, she was a semi-finalist of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award and, in 2017 and 2021, was a finalist of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician award. In 2018, she won "Scots Singer of the Year" at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards. In 2019, she won "Young Scots Speaker o the Year" at the inaugural Scots Language Awards, winning "Scots Performer o the Year" in the 2020 Awards, and "Scots Speaker o the Year" in the 2021 Awards. She has advocated for official recognition of the Scots language, successfully petitioning Spotify to add Scots to their list of languages.
