BELFAST will cement its place as the musical capital of Ireland early next month when the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards come to the Waterfront Hall on Wednesday April 4.
Following the huge success of RTÉ’s Other Voices and the Gradam TG4 awards, the Beeb are raising the bar again with a ceremony that includes 28 nominated singers and bands over six categories, a Best Original Track, a Life Achievement Award and a new inductee into the Folk Awards Hall of Fame.
Not only that but there will be performances from stellar artists such as Cara Dillon, Eliza Carthy and the Wayward Band, Lankum, Paul Brady and Life Achievement Award winner Dónal Lunny (yeah!).
The glittering event (do folkies do glitter?) will be compered by The Folk Show presenter Mark Radcliffe and Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis.
For Mark, it is high time the awards came to Belfast.
“Oh, I think it’s long overdue,” he says. “I’ve done five or six already, a couple at the Royal Albert Hall, one at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow and the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, so really it was screaming out to have it in Belfast. Some will say it should have happened before now and I would have some sympathy with that view.”
Songs and tunes have always been swapped, stolen, adapted and adopted as people travelled from Ireland to England, Scotland and Wales and vice versa while music from the Celtic countries has travelled all over the world but we mustn’t forget where it came from.
Luckily there are still people who keep what is called folk music alive but what is Mark’s definition of “folk” song"?
“I have that about that a lot and it is very difficult to come up with a definitive answer but my definition is that it is the song of the ordinary man and woman,” he says.
“It is really an expression of the lives of ordinary people, one which gives them a voice – although in contemporary folk, that is not necessarily so – and that moves us into protest song. Folk music is very strongly in favour of people who are discriminated against, although that goes back centuries so folk song is a multi-faceted art form,” says Mark.
“It’s the same with traditional music which can also go back centuries but people are still writing 'traditional' tunes the same way someone can make furniture in a traditional style."
That endless variety, the creative continuum of folk over the centuries,will be seen and heard in all it glory at the Folk Awards.
Previous Folk Award recipients include The Chieftains, The Dubliners, Joan Baez, Yusuf Cat Stevens, Billy Bragg, Shirley Collins, Ry Cooder, John Martyn and Rhiannon Giddens.
On April 4, a fantastic evening of music is guaranteed as Dónal Lunny, a man at the forefront of Irish music since Cúchulainn was in short trousers, is bringing some musical friends along as he gets due recognition for his stunning contribution to making Irish traditional music and song the worldwide phenomenon that it is today.
Mark certainly sees this as one of the night’s highlights: “It’ll be a great night with Dónal there and with Liam O’Flynn’s recent passing, I think that will make it a poignant occasion as well.”
Paul Brady will be also be there and I suggest that if you add the ages of all these people together, you’d get a cricket score but the Folk Awards are all about celebrating young people too.
Maghera’s Jack Warnock is up against Josiah & Ludwig, Mera Royle and The Drystones for the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award and increasing numbers of young people are turning to folk music as they look for something that is more authentic in their lives.
“Ever more young people are taking up instruments and writing songs to express life as they are living it now. It is still a living, breathing music,” says Mark.
He also gives a special mention to Lankum, the Dublin band who have inspired a new wave of bands who are looking beyond the tried and tested repertoire or taking a fresh look at old classics and making them exciting to contemporary audiences.
Myself, I am particularly looking forward to Eliza Carthy. The Princess of English folk is brilliant at what she does, whether it’s as a duet with her father, Martin, or with the new big band that is her latest project, the Wayward Band.
Indeed, women are to the fore in this year’s awards, the 19th in all, with all four nominees in the Folk Singer of the Year award – Cara Dillon, Julie Fowlis, Siobhan Miller and Karine Polwart. I’m glad I don’t have to decide a winner from that group.
The latest inductee into the Folk Awards Hall of fame is Nick Drake, the singer/songwriter who tragically died by suicide at the age of 26, leaving behind three albums that are only now getting the recognition they deserve.
So the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards will be a time for reflection but mostly a time of celebration of our unique musical heritage and the people who are boldly taking it into the 21st century.
:: The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards will take place on April 4 at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. Doors open 6.30pm, show starts 7.15pm; tickets £20. The event will be simulcast live from 7.30-9pm on Radio 2 and BBC Radio Ulster and, after the show, selected highlights will be available to watch at bbc.co.uk/radio2. Highlights will be broadcast on BBC Four/BBC Northern Ireland at a later date and the show will be available on BBC iPlayer.
BBC RADIO 2 FOLK AWARDS NOMINEES
Folk Singer of the Year
:: Cara Dillon
:: Julie Fowlis
:: Siobhan Miller
:: Karine Polwart
Best duet
:: Chris Stout & Catriona McKay
:: Edgelarks
:: O’Hooley & Tidow
:: Ross Ainslie & Ali Hutton
Best Group
:: Elephant Sessions
:: Eliza Carthy & The Wayward Band
:: Lankum
:: Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys
Best album
:: Eliza Carthy & The Wayward Band – Big Machine
:: Karine Polwart with Pippa Murphy – A Pocket of Wind Resistance
:: Lankum – Between the Earth and Sky
:: The Young’uns – Strangers
Horizon Award
:: Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne
:: Georgia Lewis
:: Ímar
:: Ryan Young
Best musician
:: Martin Simpson
:: Mohsen Amini
:: Ross Ainslie
:: Tim Edey
Best original track
:: Be The Man – The Young’uns
:: Cân y c?n – Gwyneth Glyn
:: The Granite Gaze – Lankum
:: The Great Saint Lawrence River – Declan O’Rourke
BBC Radio 2 young folk award
:: Jack Warnock
:: Josiah & Ludwig
:: Mera Royle
:: The Drystones
Good tradition award
:: Armagh Pipers Club
Lifetime achievement award
:: Dónal Lunny
Hall of fame
:: Nick Drake
