Nancy Kerr (GB)

About

Nancy Kerr is one of English folk music's most distinctive voices, known for pioneering a style called fiddle singing that weaves together her playing and vocals into something genuinely her own. She first caught attention in the early 1990s through a partnership with Eliza Carthy, and has since built a career spanning duo work, commissions, trios, quartets and solo records. Her long running collaboration with Australian bouzouki player James Fagan, whom she married in 2007, earned them multiple BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards including Best Duo in 2003 and 2011, and her 2014 solo debut Sweet Visitor marked a real step into writing entirely original material. She has been part of some ambitious collective projects too, from The Full English, which won Best Group and Best Album at the 2014 Folk Awards, to Sweet Liberties and Shake the Chains, both exploring politics and protest through song. Her second solo album Instar came out in 2016, and during 2020 she recorded 31 new arrangements of Leon Rosselson songs for her YouTube channel. She is a Principal Lecturer at Leeds Conservatoire.