News / Icing on the folk festival cake
THE ORGANISERS of this year’s Shetland Folk Festival say they have just put the icing on the cake of this year’s 30th anniversary event by booking three additions to the already busy line-up.
On the back of their appearance at this year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, Brooklyn-based The Wiyos will make a special one off trip from the US to appear in Shetland.
The Wiyos are said to be “truly unique”, creating original yet vintage sounding country blues, swing, jugband, hillbilly and ragtime tunes whilst adding the visual element of a vaudeville-style stage show.
Recent winners of the prestigious Scottish Folk Band of the Year award at the Scots Trad Music Awards, Bodega, have also been confirmed.
Shetland’s Ross Couper is on fiddle, joined by prize winning vocalist Norrie McIver from Lewis, multi-instrumentalist Tia Files on guitar, June Naylor on Clarsach and for their trip to Shetland, Lorne MacDougall, one of Scotland’s leading young pipers and finalist in the 2010 BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the year.
Meanwhile, fellow finalist Paddy Callaghan has been invited with his band Feolta as this year’s session act.
All three acts will be in Shetland for the festival’s duration, playing at different venues throughout the isles alongside Shetland musicians such as the Sheila Henderson Band, Bryan Gear & Violet Tulloch and Inge Thomson, who is making the trip home with her band to formally launch her debut solo CD “Shipwrecks and Static.”
The first set of tickets will go on sale this Saturday 13 February for the one-off concert by Scotland’s leading children’s entertainers The Singing Kettle. Priced at £10 for all, they will be available for purchase between 10am and 3pm at the festival office, 5 Burns Lane, Lerwick or by phoning 01595 696349 during those hours.
For all other concerts, advance members will receive the ticket booking form mid March with booking open to all from 2 April.
Further information is at www.shetlandfolkfestival.com
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