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Karen Tweed | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | 1963 Willesden, London, UK |
| Genres | English folk music, Scandinavian folk music |
| Occupation(s) | Piano accordionist |
| Years active | 1987- |
| Labels | Various |
| Associated acts | The Poozies, Swåp, Kathryn Tickell Band, Timo Alakotila, Andy Cutting, Sally Barker |
| Website | karentweed.com |
Karen Tweed (born 1963, [1] Willesden) is a piano accordionist from London, England.
Tweed was born to an Irish mother and an English father. [1] She began to play the piano accordion at the age of 11, studying from button and piano accordion virtuoso John Whelan, and went on to win the first of 5 all-Ireland championships in 1977 (on both piano accordion and melodica). In 1989, she resigned from her full-time Art and Design teaching post at Bexhill High School, Sussex, to become a professional musician working with The Poozies, The Kathryn Tickell Band and Sally Barker. Since then she has played around the world, giving concerts in Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, Scandinavia, Lesotho, Turkey, Japan, the United States and Canada.
As of 2007 [update] , she is featured on over 30 CDs, and is also in demand for her work as an arranger, composer and tutor, being main piano accordion tutor at Folkworks youth courses for the past several years, as well as organising her own Adventures in Music courses along with Roger Wilson. She is the main piano accordion tutor at the World Music Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland and a regular tutor at the BMus Degree in folk and traditional music at Newcastle University and The Sage Gateshead.
She left The Poozies and Swåp in 2007 in order to work on other projects. In 2012, she released a solo five-track album entitled Essentially Invisible to the Eye. [1]
Kathryn Tickell, OBE, DL is an English musician, noted for her mastery of the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle.
Kate Anna Rusby is an English folk singer-songwriter from Penistone, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Sometimes called the "Barnsley Nightingale", she has headlined various British national folk festivals, and is one of the best known contemporary English folk singers. In 2001 The Guardian described her as "a superstar of the British acoustic scene." In 2007 the BBC website described her as "The first lady of young folkies". She is one of the few folk singers to have been nominated for the Mercury Prize.
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The Boys of the Lough is a Scottish-Irish Celtic music band active since the 1970s.
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Kate St John is a composer, arranger, producer and instrumentalist. Classically trained on oboe, she gained a music degree at City University London. Her first band was The Ravishing Beauties with Virginia Astley and Nicky Holland. The trio joined The Teardrop Explodes in Liverpool during the winter of 1981 for a series of dates at a small clubs and a UK tour in early 1982. During the 1980s and early 1990s she was a member of The Dream Academy with Nick Laird-Clowes and Gilbert Gabriel. In 1985 they had a worldwide hit with "Life In A Northern Town" and produced three albums: The Dream Academy (1985), Remembrance Days (1987) and A Different Kind Of Weather (1990). In the 1990s St. John was a member of Van Morrison's live band playing oboe and saxophone. She played on 5 Van Morrison albums. In 1994 she co-wrote and sang on 4 tracks with Roger Eno on the album The Familiar on the All Saints Label. This led to the formation of Channel Light Vessel, a band with Kate, Roger Eno, Bill Nelson, Laraaji and Mayumi Tachibana. St John has released two solo albums: Indescribable Night (1995) and Second Sight (1997).
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Andy Cutting is an English folk musician and composer. He plays melodeon and is best known for writing and performing traditional English folk and his own original compositions which combine English and French traditions with wider influences. He is three times winner of the Folk Musician of the Year award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and has appeared on around 50 albums, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians. He was born in Harrow, London and is married with three children.
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