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Radio 2 Young Folk Award 2008 winner announced
Jeana Leslie and Siobhan Miller have been crowned winners of the 10th Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 2 Young Folk Award.
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Highlights from the final can be heard in the Mike Harding Show tonight (Wednesday 12 December 2007) at 7pm on Radio 2.
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The duo claimed the title at the end of a night of music at The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London where once again six of the UK's most promising young folk acts performed for the chance to win a host of prizes and kick start their careers.
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The prize for the winners includes a session for Mike Harding's Radio 2 show and slots at three of the UK's most important festivals – Cambridge Folk Festival, Fairport's Cropredy Convention and Towersey Village Festival.
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Jeana Leslie and Siobhan Miller are third year students on the BA Scottish Music course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Jeana is 19 and comes from Orkney, Siobhan is 20 and is from Penicuik.
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For the Radio 2 Young Folk Award final Siobhan sang and Jeana played piano, fiddle and sang. The duo were presented with their award by singer, songwriter and musician Seth Lakeman, who collected two awards himself at this year's award ceremony.
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Siobhan said: "We had an absolute ball. None of us felt it was like a competition because everybody got on from the word go. Everybody just gelled and it was nice in the semis because we could just all go out and watch everybody else and you could just feel that support from everybody."
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A panel of judges had the job of choosing just 12 acts to go through to the semi-final – a weekend of workshops, sessions and socialising centered around a Saturday evening audition concert, which took place in October in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
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The other five finalists were:
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Jack McNeill and Charlie Heys: Guitar, vocal and fiddle duo aged 20 and 19 from Carlisle and Hampshire respectively.
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Jack and Charlie are students at the Birmingham Conservatoire. Jack is a singer-songwriter who has performed opening support for the Wailin' Jennys and Po' Girl. Charlie has played in several folk bands including Sonas and Rubber Chicken, and plays fiddle in her dad's band. As a duo Jack and Charlie played opening support for Dave Swarbrick and Martin Carthy at Birmingham's Red Lion Folk Club and an album is planned for the summer of 2008.
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Ryan Young: Traditional Scottish fiddle player, aged 16 from Loch Lomond.
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Ryan has been playing the fiddle for seven years, and was a winner of the Danny Kyle Open Stage at Celtic Connections earlier this year. He has won the young folk musician at the Lomond Folk Festival on three occasions and was a finalist in this competition last year. Last month he played as a soloist in the grand concert of the Edinburgh Fiddle Festival and will also be appearing at Celtic Connections in Glasgow next month. Ryan would describe his greatest influences as being Aly Bain and Martin Hayes.
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Emily Hoile: Clarsach and pedal harp player, aged 15 from Tyne and Wear.
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Emily began playing the clarsach when she was five years old and two years later she joined the local folk band, Southwind. Four years ago she gained a place at the City of Edinburgh Music School where she studied with Isobel Mieras. At the age of 12 she became the youngest member of Newcastle-based folk band Folkestra and has now played with them for over three years, and has began to play the pedal harp. She studies both instruments with Catriona McKay at St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh.
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One String Loose: Four-piece group, aged between 15 and 20 from Monmouthshire.
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The group came together through the Newport branch of Comhaltas and, in the past year, One String Loose have played more than 50 shows to audiences around England and Wales as well as in Europe. Some of the highlights include playing the main stage at Gwyl Pontadawe Festival and headlining the Zamek Celtic Festival in Poland. They have also appeared twice on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio Wales' A Celtic Heartbeat hosted by Frank Hennessy.
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Dogan Mehmet: Singer and fiddle player, aged 17 from Brighton.
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Dogan plays violin, guitar, bouzouki, melodeon, percussion, bass (among other instruments) and sings as well. His family come from Cyprus and his upbringing was steeped in Cypriot culture, music and the Turkish language. His interest in English culture and music developed after becoming a part of the east-meets-west young trio Too Many Strings, who perform English and eastern song and dance music. His influences include Eliza Carthy and Bellowhead.
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Information on Radio 2's folk programming can be found at bbc.co.uk/radio2.
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