Far Flung Collective and Friends

About Us

Far Flung Collective:

Anna-Wendy Stevenson – fiddle

Alex Roberts – voice and guitars

Simon Bradley – viola

Dan Somogyi – piano and guitar

Mabel Duncan – voice, fiddle

Selina Ross - fiddle

Sheena Peterana – pipes, whistles

Jamie Anderson – accordion

 

National Youth Folk Mini Ensemble:

Sam Sweeney, Miranda Rutter, Archie Churchill-Moss and alumni from the National Youth Folk Ensemble (fiddles, viola, piano accordion, melodeon, flute, guitar)

 

Don’t miss this evening of beautiful contemporary folk music from across the Western Isles of Scotland and mainland England.

The concert will start with a short set from young English players, alumni of the English National Youth Folk Ensemble, alongside established English musicians Sam Sweeney (Bellowhead, Leveret), Miranda Rutter (Methera) and Archie Churchill-Moss (Moore Moss Rutter, Sam Kelly and the Lost Boys). The National Youth Folk Ensemble gives the most talented young musicians from across England the chance to compose and perform new folk music with the very best of their contemporaries. The Ensemble has previously performed at Cambridge Folk Festival, and in 2020 will perform at Purbeck Valley Folk Festival for the first time.

Far Flung Collective will then take the stage, returning to Lighthouse after 4 years to launch a new album, following a sold out performance in 2016. Inspired by musical exchanges between Dorset and the Gaelic-speaking Outer Hebrides, the band uses landscape, the environment and common challenges of coastal communities to inspire new music – along with ideas from young people collected from workshops in schools across the Western Isles and Dorset since 2013. The collective has worked with over 10000 young people in over 40 schools in England and Scotland over the past 5 years.

Far Flung Collective’s debut album ‘Far Flung Corners’ was released in 2017 and won rapid critical acclaim (‘gorgeous and delightful… a beautiful collaboration’ – Songlines Magazine). Following performances at Glasgow’s prestigious Celtic Connections Festival, Stornoway’s An Lanntair venue, and further performances in venues in England and the Outer Hebrides, this latest 8-piece incarnation includes internationally-renowned Hebrides-based composer and fiddler, Anna-Wendy Stevenson, Uist based viola player and composer Simon Bradley, popular English folk singer/songwriter Alex Roberts and local multi-instrumentalist Dan Somogyi. Following this concert, the musicians will join up again in the summer, to compose a new suite of music inspired by the heritage and landscapes of Southern England. But appearances are rare, because of the logistics of getting such a dispersed bunch musicians together – so don’t miss!

The concert has been produced by SoundStorm, University of the Highlands and Islands Applied Music Course and the English Folk Dance and Song Society, in partnership with Lighthouse. It follows a week’s worth of music making activities in a local primary and secondary schools by musicians from both ensembles, designed to stimulate an interest in folk music in young people.

Supported by SoundStorm, the University of the Highlands and Islands, the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Arts Council England, Garfield Weston Foundation and Lighthouse.