Owen Spafford is a fiddle player and composer from Leeds who has performed for the leaders of the commonwealth states, toured with Giffords Circus and has received a scholarship to study composition at the Royal Academy of Music. His installation ‘Welcome Here, Kind Stranger’ has been performed at the Rainy Days festival in Luxembourg alongside Sam Amidon, Brighde Chaimbeul and Annabelle Blott and at September Me festival in the Netherlands. Owen is also an All-Britain Fiddle Champion in the Fleadh Cheoil na Breataine and BBC Young Composer Competition nominee. Equally at home in a traditional session as he is in a free improvisation workshop, Spafford’s understanding of the oral tradition and love for vernacular music from around the world enables an inventive and thoughtful musical style.
The Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) is a small, brown, unremarkable-looking bird, but they possess one of nature’s finest singing voices. The English population winters in Sub-Saharan Africa in the western countries like Sierra Leon and Senegal, returning to the very same thicket they were born in arriving in early to mid-April. They spend April to the end of May mating and nesting where we can encounter the extraordinary display of the males’ courtship song, famous for his all-night broadcast.
Sam is a folksinger, song collector, activist, nature conservationist, guide, and presenter. With three critically acclaimed albums - his debut receiving a Mercury Music Prize nomination - he works holistically in challenging the sound and purpose of our indigenous music in the 21st Century.
