Kathryn Tickell: Women Make Music

Kathryn Tickell has gathered musicians from Northumberland, Scotland, Ireland and England to form a new band, invoking the dark, powerful sounds of Ancient Northumbria and broadcasting them to the modern world.

Kathryn Tickell is widely acclaimed as the foremost exponent of the Northumbrian pipes. She is a composer, performer, educator and and recording artist whose work is deeply rooted in the landscape and people of Northumbria. She has released 15 of her own albums to date and has also recorded and performed with Sting, The Chieftains, Penguin Café Orchestra, Jon Lord, Evelyn Glennie, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Royal Northern Sinfonia and many others. In 2015 she was awarded the OBE for services to folk music. She is a regular presenter of BBC Radio 3’s “Music Planet”.

For ‘The Darkening’ Kathryn’s inspiration comes from the wild, dramatic, weather-bitten countryside along Hadrian’s Wall, which seems so quintessentially Northumbrian and yet, almost 2000 years ago, that same landscape was inhabited by people from around the world, worshipping different gods and following different customs.

‘Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening’ embraces that global perspective, bringing some of the oldest Northumbrian tunes and songs throbbing to life, intermingling them with new material and binding it all together with contemporary resonance and attitude. Fresh sounds merge with ancient influences. Kathryn’s Northumbrian pipes and fiddle are interwoven with programmed and performed percussive elements and voices. ‘The Darkening’ is the Northumbrian name for twilight, but this band’s music blazes fiercely!

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