This week as her special guest from the arts Ruth Copland is pleased to be interviewing Kathryn Tickell, Northumbrian piper, fiddler, composer, recording artist and educator. Kathryn is the recipient of the Queen’s Medal for Music for outstanding contribution to British music, the Musician of the Year in BBC Radio 2’s Folk Awards, and very recently the Order of The British Empire (or OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to folk music. Kathryn is widely acclaimed as the foremost exponent of the Northumbrian pipes. She works collaboratively across many genres, which makes her work contemporary and vibrant. She has released 15 of her own albums and has also recorded and performed with The Chieftains, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Jon Lord, Evelyn Glennie, Liverpool Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Sting – for whom she has played on four albums, and many others. Her amazing career began as a young girl of nine when she picked up a set of Northumbrian smallpipes, inspired by her family and by the music of an older generation of traditional musicians. By the age of 16 she had released her first album and was named the official piper for the Lord Mayor of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. At 18 she turned professional and began a busy touring schedule and career which has gone from strength to strength. She has been the subject of TV documentaries, composed music for theatre, presented radio programmes for the BBC and TV programmes on musical composition and toured throughout the world both solo and with The Kathryn Tickell Band and The Side.
Tune in Saturday 9-10 PM to find out more about the life and art of Kathryn Tickell. For more info and to hear previous shows visit www.itsaquestionofbalance.com
