Rachel Newton - BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Musician of the Year 2017.

It has been an eventful couple of years for singer and harpist Rachel Newton. Starting off 2017 having recently been awarded Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2016 Scots Trad. Music Awards, Rachel then went on to win 2017 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Musician of the Year as well as Best Group with one of her bands The Furrow Collective. Her third solo album “Here's My Heart Come Take It” was shortlisted as one of the ten outstanding albums in the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Awards and Rachel was included at number 8 in The List's Hot 100 as one of their top cultural Scots. 

Focusing more on her solo career after years performing with The Shee, The Furrow Collective and various other collaborations,  Rachel made her debut performance with her own five-piece band on the main stage at Cambridge Folk Festival in the summer and also completed her first ever tour with the band. The band were all set to perform some more shows in Autumn 2017 when Rachel was taken in for an urgent operation on her spine. Happily, Rachel is now fully recovered and will be heading out with the band in April to perform two rescheduled shows.

Rachel specialises in interpreting traditional folk songs in both English and Scottish Gaelic as well as writing and performing her own instrumental pieces. Rachel performs with her band featuring Lauren MacColl on fiddle, Michael Owers on trombone, Sarah Hayes on keys and Mattie Foulds on percussion. Rachel also plays fiddle and viola and works across a range of performance platforms including theatre and storytelling.

?'Newton delivers a thing of great beauty'  *****fROOTS    
'Newton has made the leap to a fine solo performer and this album is perhaps her best yet' ****Telegraph