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| Background information | |
| Born | 8 June 1967 Walsall, Staffordshire, England |
| Genres | Traditional, folk, Celtic |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instrument(s) | Northumbrian smallpipes, fiddle |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Labels | Black Crow, Park, Resilient |
| Website | www |
Kathryn Tickell, OBE, DL (born 8 June 1967) is an English musician, noted for playing the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle. [1]
Kathryn Tickell was born in Walsall, to parents who originated from Northumberland and who moved back there from Staffordshire with the family when Kathryn was seven. [2] Her paternal grandfather played accordion, fiddle, and organ. Her father, Mike Tickell, [3] sings and her mother played the concertina. Her first instrument was piano when she was six. [4] A year later, she picked up a set of Northumbrian smallpipes brought home by her father, who intended them for someone else. Frustrated by fiddle and piano, she learned that the pipes rewarded her effort. [5] She was inspired by older musicians such as Willy Taylor, Will Atkinson, Joe Hutton, and Billy Pigg. [6]
At thirteen, she had gained a reputation from performing in festivals and winning pipe contests. [4] [7] When she was seventeen, she released her first album, On Kielder Side (Saydisc, 1984), which she recorded at her parents' house. During the same year, she was named Official Piper to the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, an office that had been vacant for 13 years, since George Atkinson's appointment for a single year in 1971. [8] [4] [7] She formed the Kathryn Tickell Band, with Karen Tweed on accordion, bass, and Ian Carr on guitar, and released the band's first album in 1991 on Black Crow Records. [4] Later, the band comprised Peter Tickell on fiddle, Julian Sutton on melodeon, and Joss Clapp on guitar. [7] In 2001, the Kathryn Tickell Band was the first band to play traditional folk music at the Promenade Concerts in London. [7] [9]
She recorded with the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, led by Simon Jeffes. She met Jeffes while she was in her teens, and he wrote the song "Organum" for her. Over a decade after Jeffes's death, she played with Penguin Cafe, run by his son, Arthur. [5]
Tickell has also recorded with The Chieftains, The Boys of the Lough, Jon Lord, Jimmy Nail, Linda Thompson, Alan Parsons, and Andy Sheppard. [9] She has performed live with Sting, who is also from Newcastle upon Tyne, and has recorded with him on his albums The Soul Cages (1991), Ten Summoner's Tales (1993), Mercury Falling (1996), Brand New Day , (1999), If on a Winter's Night (2009), and The Last Ship (2013).
Two ex-members of the North East England traditional music group the High Level Ranters have appeared on her albums: Tom Gilfellon on On Kielder Side and Alistair Anderson on Borderlands (1986). The latter album included to a tribute to the Wark football team. Several other pipers have appeared on her albums: Troy Donockley on Debatable Lands, Patrick Molard on The Gathering and Martyn Bennett on Borderlands. Debatable Lands included "Our Kate", a composition by Kathryn Tickell dedicated to Catherine Cookson.
In 2011, she took part in the Sunderland A.F.C. charity Foundation of Light event. [10]
She formed Kathryn Tickell and the Side, with Ruth Wall on Celtic harp, Louisa Tuck on cello, and Amy Thatcher on accordion. The group plays a mixture of traditional and classical music. They released an eponymous album in 2014. [11] [12]
In 2018 Tickell established a new band, Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, with whom she released the album Hollowbone in 2019. This project signals a different approach, with new material. There is a semi-imaginary incursion into the prehistory of Northumbrian music in the track "Nemesis" based on Roman-era texts and a melody by Emperor Hadrian’s court musician Mesomedes. There is a foray into a world of ancestral shamanism in "O-u-t Spells Out". The album was greeted with critical acclaim, with four-star reviews in The Observer and the Financial Times, as were the band's various national tours in its first two years of existence.[ citation needed ]
In 1987, the early part of her career was chronicled in The Long Tradition, a TV documentary. Kathryn Tickell's Northumbria, another documentary, appeared in 2006. In 1997, Tickell founded the Young Musicians Fund of the Tyne and Wear Foundation to provide money to young people in northeastern England who wanted to learn music. She founded the Festival of the North East and from 2009 to 2013 was the artistic director of Folkworks. [6]
She is also a regular presenter for BBC Radio 3's weekly world music programme Music Planet. [13] [14]
Kathryn Tickell
Kathryn Tickell & Corrina Hewat
Kathryn Tickell & Ensemble Mystical
Kathryn Tickell & Friends
Kathryn Tickell & Peter Tickell
Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening
Kathryn Tickell & the Side
The Kathryn Tickell Band
With Sting
With others
Northumberland is a ceremonial county in North East England, bordering Scotland. It is bordered by the Scottish Borders to the north, the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The town of Blyth is the largest settlement. Northumberland is the northernmost county in England.
The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from Northeastern England, where they have been an important factor in the local musical culture for more than 250 years. The family of the Duke of Northumberland have had an official piper for over 250 years. The Northumbrian Pipers' Society was founded in 1928, to encourage the playing of the instrument and its music; Although there were so few players at times during the last century that some feared the tradition would die out, there are many players and makers of the instrument nowadays, and the Society has played a large role in this revival. In more recent times the Mayor of Gateshead and the Lord Mayor of Newcastle have both established a tradition of appointing official Northumbrian pipers.
The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) were an avant-pop band led by British guitarist Simon Jeffes. Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann, the band toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band's sound is not easily categorized, having elements of exuberant folk music and a minimalist aesthetic occasionally reminiscent of composers such as Philip Glass.
The Boys of the Lough is a Scottish-Irish Celtic music band active since the 1970s.
Here Northumbria is defined as Northumberland, the northernmost county of England, and County Durham. According to 'World Music: The Rough Guide', "nowhere is the English living tradition more in evidence than the border lands of Northumbria, the one part of England to rival the counties of the west of Ireland for a rich unbroken tradition. The region is particularly noted for its tradition of border ballads, the Northumbrian smallpipes and also a strong fiddle tradition in the region that was already well established in the 1690s. Northumbrian music is characterised by considerable influence from other regions, particularly southern Scotland and other parts of the north of England, as well as Irish immigrants.
Folkestra, formerly known as FolkESTRA North is The Sage Gateshead’s youth folk ensemble, formed in 2001. It is led by their Musical Director Ian Stephenson, a multi-instrumentalist playing folk and traditional music from Northumbria and Scandinavia. The former Musical Director was Kathryn Tickell, one of England's premiere folk musicians.
Acoustic Live in Newcastle is the second live album released by Sting. It was recorded and released shortly after the studio album The Soul Cages, at the Buddle Arts Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on 20 April 1991. The album includes four tracks from The Soul Cages, as well as a cover of the Bill Withers song "Ain't No Sunshine".
Will Atkinson was a noted traditional musician from northern Northumberland. He started off as a player of the English diatonic accordion, but was best known as a harmonica or moothie player. His playing was distinguished by a very clear sense of rhythm, with a definite lilt. He was a major figure in Northumbrian music. He was also the composer of several tunes that have entered the tradition and are played at gatherings and sessions.
Katie Doherty, born 1983, is a singer-songwriter based in the North East of England. In 2007 she won the Journal Culture Award for Newcomer of the Year.
Catriona Macdonald is a fiddler, composer, researcher, and lecturer from Shetland, located some 320 km north of the Scottish mainland. She is considered to be among the world's leading traditional fiddle players, and one of the top exponents of the Shetland fiddle, a branch of traditional music with clear connections to the music of Scotland, but which features differs slightly in its overall feeling. The music of Shetland has been shaped for centuries by visitors and various musicians from abroad, including Scandinavians, and has been influenced by styles such as the music of Orkney, Norway and Ireland.
Jack Armstrong was a performer on the Northumbrian smallpipes.
Geoff Heslop is an English record producer and musician.
Colin Ross was an English folk musician who played fiddle and Northumbrian smallpipes. He was a noted maker of Northumbrian smallpipes, border pipes and Scottish smallpipes, and one of the inventors of the modern Scottish smallpipes.
From 1770 to 1772 a man called William Vickers made a manuscript collection of dance tunes, of which some 580 survive, including both pipe and fiddle tunes. The manuscript is incomplete - 31 pages have not survived, though their contents are listed at the beginning of the book. In the mid-19th century, it belonged to the pipemaker John Baty, of Wark, Northumberland, and it now belongs to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is kept in the Northumberland County Record Office at Woodhorn, Ashington.
Joe Hutton was a Northumbrian smallpipe player and fiddler.
The High Level Ranters are a Northumbrian traditional musical group founded in 1964, best known for being one of the first bands in the revival of the Northumbrian smallpipes.
Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell were a contemporary English folk duo. Although they played some traditional songs, most of the songs they sang were their own compositions influenced by the folk tradition, but also songs by other artists such as Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Cole Porter, Brian Wilson and The Beatles.
Archie Dagg was a shepherd and traditional fiddler, piper and composer from central Northumberland. He was born at Linbriggs, in Upper Coquetdale, and except for his time in the Army at the end of the First World War, lived all his life in that region. In the late 1930s, he was a member of the English Sheepdog Trials Team; when competing with them in Scotland, he would play Scottish tunes on the Northumbrian smallpipes, and found he would get a steady supply of free drams.
George Hepple (1904–1997) was an influential traditional Northumbrian fiddler. He was born at Sook Hill Farm, Haltwhistle, West Northumberland. He went to a nearby school in Melkridge. He began his working life as an apprentice blacksmith at Cawfield's Quarry at the age of fourteen, before moving to Ventners Hall Colliery where he remained until its closure in the 1950s. He then worked at Bardon Mill Colliery. He later worked in a plastics factory in Plenmellor, South of Haltwistle, until his retirement. In the last years of his life, he lived with his wife Edna in sheltered housing in Haltwhistle. At this time, he also had a pacemaker implanted and when the doctor said he should return to have the battery replaced, in 10 years, he replied "I don't need to worry about that then!".
The Northumbrian Small Pipes Society was founded in 1893, by members of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne to promote interest in, and playing of Northumbrian smallpipes, and their music. As it only continued in existence for seven years, it is now regarded primarily as a short-lived precursor to the Northumbrian Pipers' Society. However, despite its short life, it played a significant role, publishing the first tutor for the instrument, J. W. Fenwick's Instruction Book for the Northumbrian Small-Pipes (1896), holding regular meetings, and organising annual competitions. In 1894 and 1896–7, the society published Transactions, as well as publishing an account of their Annual Meeting of 1897. As well as Members, who paid an annual 5s. subscription, there was a category of Honorary Playing Members. Since the society's records include the names and addresses of all members, of either kind, they have listed the names and addresses for 37 known pipers. Two articles in the Newcastle Courant, in April 1900, gave an account of their Annual General Meeting, at the Literary and Philosophical Society, and referred to the society as flourishing, with 200 members, of whom almost half were pipers. Officers were elected for the following year; however there is no subsequent record of any formal activity of the society, such as meetings or competitions. In 1906, when the Cloughs played for King Edward VII at Alnwick Castle, an account of this in the Berwickshire News stated that the Northumbrian Small Pipes Society had done some good work in reviving interest, but that 'seven winters had passed without it giving any signs of life'. This suggests that the society had been largely inactive for some time before its final AGM.
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