Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celtic people of Northwestern Europe. It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded music and the styles vary considerably to include everything from traditional music to a wide range of hybrids.
"World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-Western countries, including quasi-traditional, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical category pose obstacles to a universal definition, but its ethic of interest in the culturally exotic is encapsulated in Roots magazine's description of the genre as "local music from out there".
Cornwall is a Celtic nation with a long musical history. Strengthened by a series of 20th century revivals, traditional folk music has a popular following. It is accompanied by traditions of pipers, brass and silver bands, male voice choirs, classical, electronic and popular music.
Calan is a five-piece revivalist traditional Welsh band formed by their manager Huw Williams in early 2006 when its members were only 13 to 22 years old. In 2008, they created great excitement at the Inter Celtic Festival where they would eventually be the first Welsh band to win the coveted international band competition.
There has been a folk festival in the coastal town of Sidmouth in South West England in the first week of August every year since 1955, attracting tens of thousands of visitors to over 700 diverse events.
The Scots Trad Music Awards or Na Trads were founded in 2003 by Simon Thoumire to celebrate Scotland's traditional music in all its forms and create a high profile opportunity to bring the music and music industry into the spotlight of media and public attention. Nominations are made by the public and in 2019 over 100,000 public votes were expected across 18 categories.
Kerfuffle were a four-piece English folk band, originally formed in 2001 around the East Midlands and South Yorkshire regions of the UK, initially comprising Hannah James, Sam Sweeney, Chris Thornton-Smith (guitar) and Tom Sweeney. Thornton-Smith was replaced by Jamie Roberts in 2007. Kerfuffle disbanded in August 2010.
Lori Watson is a fiddle player and folk singer who performs traditional and contemporary folk music. She is the first doctor of Artistic Research in Scottish Music.
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.
The Paul McKenna Band are a five piece folk musical group from Glasgow, Scotland.
Catriona Macdonald is a musician, composer, researcher and lecturer from Shetland and is considered to be one of the world's leading traditional fiddle players.
Siân Phillips is a Welsh fiddle player specialising in Welsh folk and fiddle music.
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.
Blackbeard's Tea Party are a contemporary folk rock band based in York, England. The five-piece band plays a mix of traditional folk songs as well as covers of more recent songs from the folk genre. They are also known for their instrumental arrangements of traditional and modern folk tunes, as well as self-penned material. Blackbeard's Tea Party function as both a concert and ceilidh band and have become well known on the English festival circuit, having performed at mainstream festivals including the Glastonbury Festival, Larmer Tree Festival & Bingley Music Live, as well as folk festivals such as Fairport's Cropredy Convention, Towersey Festival and the Cambridge, Bromyard, Shrewsbury & Sidmouth folk festivals.
Calum Stewart is an uilleann piper, low whistle and wooden flute player and composer from Garmouth in Scotland, who performs primarily traditional Scottish, Irish and Breton music.
Barrule was a Celtic and folk trio from the Isle of Man. The band's three members were: Tomas Callister (fiddle), Jamie Smith (accordion) and Adam Rhodes (bouzouki). Barrule's discography included both original and traditional Manx language songs.
Talisk are a Scottish folk band composed of Mohsen Amini, Benedict Morris, and Charlie Galloway. The band rose to prominence after winning the 2015 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award and the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards "Folk Band of the Year" category in 2017.
Ímar are a folk band from the British Isles, founded in 2016 in Glasgow, Scotland. They won the Horizon Award for Best Emerging Act at the 2018 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
The BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician competition has run annually since 2001. It exists to encourage young musicians to keep their tradition alive and to provide performance opportunities, tools and advice to help contestants make a career in traditional music. Former winners include Hannah Rarity, Mohsen Amini, Robyn Stapleton, Shona Mooney and Emily Smith.
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.
