Bellowhead fiddler Sam Sweeney solo concert and fiddle workshop

“The fiddler with the Midas touch… an English equivalent of the great Irish fiddle player Martin Hayes.” **** The Guardian

Saturday, 13 May 2023, concert at 7:30 pm (doors 7:00 pm), workshop 2:00 – 4:30 pm
St Mary’s Church, Quarry Street, Guildford GU1 3UA

Tickets: https://www.folkinspiration.org/ (concessions for under 25s)

Highly acclaimed folk fiddler Sam Sweeney (Bellowhead, Leveret and the Sam Sweeney Band. BBC Folk Awards, Musician of the Year 2015) will be performing and teaching in Guildford during his solo UK tour in May. In addition to the evening concert on Saturday 13 May, Sam will be holding a workshop for fiddle players in the afternoon. Both the workshop and concert will be taking place in the beautiful, historic St Mary’s Church in the centre of Guildford.

Sam has inspired and mentored a new generation of folk musicians through his work as the inaugural artistic director of the National Youth Folk Ensemble from 2016 to 2019. His workshop for fiddle players will be a unique opportunity for budding instrumentalists of all ages to learn from one of the most accomplished musicians on the folk scene.

What to expect: An intimate, totally acoustic performance of Sam’s favourite tunes. The wonderful acoustics of St Mary’s Church will provide the ideal setting for his trademark sensitive and highly-expressive style of playing.

SAM SWEENEY
After the release of three critically acclaimed albums, The Unfinished Violin, Unearth Repeat and Escape That, Sam Sweeney is taking to the road for an acoustic solo tour. Nominated four times, and winner in 2015, of Musician Of The Year BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Sam is a veteran of the mighty Bellowhead, former and inaugural artistic director of the National Youth Folk Ensemble, founder member of the acclaimed instrumental trio Leveret, and “one of the defining English fiddle players of his generation” (Mark Radcliffe) at the forefront of the revival in English traditional music.