Guests for the 2025 Moreton Traditional Sing

Andy is a highly-regarded singer and anglo-concertina player, based in Oxfordshire. He sings and plays with Magpie Lane, and in a duo with fiddle-player Mat Green. He sings mostly traditional English songs, mostly from Southern England, and with a particular interest in the largely overlooked songs from his native Kent. As a concertina-player, he plays with various dance bands, and is the musician for Headington Quarry Morris Dancers. His blog, A Folk Song A Week, ran continuously for 260 weeks from 2011 to 2016, and is still updated on an occasional basis.

Graham was born in Jarrow but moved to Craghead, a pit village in Durham.
He started singing in school and church choirs and as a young guitar playing teenager, joined his neighbour’s group to perform in working men’s clubs.
By 1963 he ventured into his first folk club, the Coffee Pot, in South Shields: it was there that he met some of his early inspiration, Barry Dipper and Don Day, who inspired his interest in songs of the North East. The following year he found the Folksong and Ballad Folk Club at the Bridge in Newcastle, which was to be a regular haunt, along with the Beacon, Marsden Folk club as well as Folk & Blues in Westoe.

At the Bridge he would often sing 'from the floor' before being asked, one evening to sing from the stage. This was, possibly, the most intimidating performance of his career-facing the audience from the stage while, behind him, sitting in a row, were Johnny Handle, John Brennan, Laurie Charlton, Foster Charlton, Tom Gilfellon, Louis Killen, Colin Ross and Ray Fisher!

Over the years his repertoire became increasingly based around Durham and Northumberland and includes border ballads.

As students at the same college, he and Alistair Anderson performed as a duo for a while. Graham continued performing solo at clubs and festivals until he was approached by Keith Marsden to sing with Cockersdale. After the death of Keith Marsden in 1991, the partnership with the remaining members of Cockersdale continued until 2014, when the group disbanded. Graham still performs his own solo work and occasionally sings with his son Sam Pirt.

Discography
Concertina Workshop – Alistair Anderson & Graham Pirt
Doin’ the Manch - Cockersdale
Been Around For Years – Cockersdale
Wide Open Skies – Cockersdale
Picking Sooty Blackberries – Cockersdale
Fyre & Sword – Border Ballads – Fellside
Graham & Sam Pirt – Graham & Sam
Banklands – Cockersdale

Kirsty is a native of the town of Grimsby, Lincolnshire and first started singing in the renowned Grimsby Folk Club. She has performed at local folk clubs and events, been a guest performer at the Cullerlie Traditional Singing Weekend and has appeared at festivals such as Whitby Folk Week. Kirsty has recently released her debut EP 'On the Humber Banks', which is comprised of four songs that were collected in her native county.

The daughter of Irish emigrants who made their home in London in the 1950s, Marianne was raised singing Irish songs and has been carrying her parents’ tradition ever since. She is a multi award winner at both the All Britain and All Ireland Fleadhanna Cheoil.  Well known in folk clubs all over the UK and in Ireland, Marianne has performed in venues as diverse as the Irish Embassy in London, Bristol’s Old Vic theatre, the Bishop’s Palace in Hereford – and memorably, the queue for stamps in Belmullet Post Office.

A resident in Somerset for over thirty years, Marianne leads workshops in traditional singing at folk festivals. Her influences include Dolores Keane, John Tunney and a raft of young singers encountered at Scoil Éigse down the years.

She has recorded two CDs: “The Sweet Nightingale” in 2002 and “Charmed” in 2014.

I’m a traditional singer and storyteller and have been a regular at Bodmin Folk Club almost since the first evening, 55 years ago!  I have been  a Bard of Gorsedh Kernow, Myrgh Cana Hengovek,  Daughter of Traditional Singing,  for over 25 years and am very proud of my Cornish Heritage.

I was lucky to be in Cornwall in the 60’s when traditional singers like Bob Cann, Tommy Morrissey, Charlie Pitman and Charlie Bate were singing locally and I was able to glean many songs from them and they gave me, amongst other things, the expertise needed to shut up a noisy pub! I am very proud to be the carrier of their songs.

I have won the Best Performance of a newly written song at the Pan Celtic Festival in Ireland when I represented Cornwall. Recently I started writing in the Cornish Dialect and was awarded the Gorsedh Awen Medal for ‘It T’Aint All Poldark and Pasties’ in the dialect class.  

I have played many festivals including Sidmouth, Whitby and Lorient in Brittany and have appeared in all the Celtic Countries, showcasing the traditional songs of Cornwall.  

Scott Gardiner is one of Scotland’s top traditional singers, and has been performing at concerts and festivals across the country since his schooldays. Brought up on a flatland farm in historic Forfarshire, he is best known for singing the bothy ballads and songs of the north-east.

Career highlights include representing Scotland at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in the USA; winning the Bothy Ballad World Championship in Elgin; three nominations for Scots Singer of the Year at the BBC ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards and, along with guitarist Johnny Kemp, becoming the first man to get a Mexican wave going at Dunfermline Folk Club.

Sue started working as a community choir leader in 1995. She arranges traditional songs and sources music from around the globe for her choirs. While working in community music and the theatre earlier in her career she had the opportunity to write songs to fit all kinds of situations, and she now writes music which is mainly inspired by the wonders of nature. Currently she has three choirs around the Welsh borders and a West gallery choir in South Shropshire. Sue will be running choir workshops over the weekend, featuring songs from Shropshire and Herefordshire.

For many years she has collaborated with Polly Bolton to run an annual singing camp and a number of singing retreats in South Shropshire. They recently performed a show about three women gardeners – ‘Trugs, Tiaras and Tea’ in gardens around Shropshire and Worcestershire.

Sue also plays Hammered Dulcimer in Polkaworks ceilidh band and the English Dulcimer duo with Lisa Warburton. For many years she has led her community band – Bandamania – in Presteigne, for which she arranges traditional music and writes many tunes.