Christina Alden and Alex Patterson on Friday 5 May

Christina Alden and Alex Patterson have been playing music since they were children and were both raised in musical households in the Norfolk and Suffolk countryside. They are multi-instrumentalist songwriters and have been working together for seven years. Their music is firmly bedded in the folk tradition of story-telling and their writing often reflects on the relationships between humans and the wild.

Christina and Alex have toured extensively in the UK and Europe, including a 23-date concert hall tour with Show of Hands. They have headlined and played on the main stage at some of the UK’s most prestigious folk festivals. They have written and self-released four albums, composed music for a BBC Radio 4 documentary series and have had over a million streams on Spotify. Their 2021 album ‘Hunter’ was well reviewed and had lots of national airplay: ‘a bright, lively collection of songs that plays so sweetly it evokes the sensation of a summer folk festival’ (The Guardian).

Tickets (£13 non-members, £10 club members) are available for this event by emailing via our contact page. Please note that this event runs from 7.30 to our new finish time of 10.15 pm. Bring your own drinks – teas and coffee are available in the kitchen.

Tania Opland and Mike Freeman on Friday 14 April

Our guests on Friday 14 April will be Tania Opland and Mike Freeman. After over three years of pandemic inspired inertia, disruption and chaos, Tania and Mike are back on the road for their somewhat postponed 2020 UK tour.

In 30 years on the road together these two have played at art shows, boat shows, festivals, fairs, conventions, venues large and small and events both private and corporate. But most of the time they’ve been travelling back and forth across the Atlantic to perfom throughout the UK and North America bringing a car full of instruments, a jumble of multi-cultural folk influences, and a ton of fun to any audience they can reach.

They have recorded eight albums between them (including two collaborations with best-selling author Anne McCaffrey, in Ireland), and make numerous appearances as studio musicians on other recordings in the U.S., U.K. and Canada.

Expect songs and tunes from or inspired by americana, eurofolk, early music and global influences, sung and played with hammered dulcimer, 5-string violin/viola, recorder, hurdy-gurdy, clarseach, guitar, djembe and whatever else has been rediscovered when everything comes out of storage.

The evening starts at 7.30 pm. Tickets £13 (£10 club members) can be reserved via the email link on our contact page. Bring your own drinks and the kitchen will be open for teas and coffee (50p).

Martyn Wyndham-Read and Iris Bishop on Friday 10 February

Martyn Wyndham-Read has been involved with folk music for over 40 years. In his late teens he left his mother’s farm in Sussex and headed off, with his guitar, to Australia where he worked on a sheep station in South Australia. It was while he was there that he heard, first hand, the old songs sung by some of the station hands at Emu Springs and he became captivated by these songs and the need to know more of them and where they came from grew.

Martyn moved to Melbourne and became part of the folk song revival there and throughout Australia during the early1960s. Based back in the UK, he has toured worldwide, performing a variety of traditional and contemporary songs. Martyn is accompanied by fantastic box player Iris Bishop: Where Ravens Feed

The evening starts at 7.30 pm. Tickets £13 (£10 club members) can be reserved via the email link on our contact page. Bring your own drinks and the kitchen will be open for teas and coffee (50p).

Tony Hall on Friday 13 January

Fresh from an appearance at Camden’s Cellar Upstairs Folk Club, Norfolk cartoonist, singer and melodeon player Tony Hall is much appreciated at festivals and folk clubs all over the country. A review in Living Tradition describes Tony as being ‘the master of playing distinctive, quintessentially English style two-row melodeon’, pointing out that he ‘has been heard on Maddy Prior and June Tabor’s Silly Sisters album, and Nic Jones’ superb Penguin Eggs‘, and concluding that he is ‘a man of rare talent’. We look forward to an evening full of entertaining music and good humour to lift our spirits in this chilly season.

Please email via the contact page to let us know if you would like us to save tickets (£13 non-members, £10 club members). Bring your own drinks, as the kitchen will be closed. Contributions to Shirley’s donation box will be taken to the local food bank.

Coracle on Friday 25 November

Photo by Head Girl Photography

On Friday 25 November we look forward to welcoming Coracle, a new group bringing together the talents, imagination and creativity of three artists with vastly different backgrounds, who have come together through their love of traditional music cut through with experimentation, boldness, humour and risk. Be thrilled by the silvern voice of Anna Tam, the free-flowing mix of reeds … clarinet and accordion … cello, nyckelharpa, viola da gamba and hurdy-gurdy.

Accordionist Paul Hutchinson is a BBC Folk Award Best Live nominee (Belshazzar’s Feast), Karen Wimhurst is an accomplished clarinet player and composer, and Anna Tam, shortlisted as Fatea’s 2021 Instrumentalist of the Year and a former Mediaeval Baebe, brings a range of other instruments as well as her ‘gin-pure’ voice.

This event will start at 7.30 pm. Tickets (£13 non-members, £10 club members) can be reserved by emailing via our contact page. Bring your own drinks, as the kitchen will be closed.

 

John Kirkpatrick on Friday 4 November

On Friday 4 November we look forward to welcoming one of the most prolific figures on the English folk scene (performing solo, in duos, acoustic groups and electric bands) John Kirkpatrick MBE. John has established an enviable reputation as an instrumental virtuoso (melodeon, Anglo concertina and button accordion), as well as a leading interpreter of English folk music, a fine singer and dancer.

John’s performances of songs and tunes are brimful of life, vitality and humour, making for a great night’s entertainment. The event starts at 7.30 pm, and please email us through our contact page if you would like us to save tickets (£13 non-members, £10 club members). Bring your own drinks.

Song session showcase with The Marisca Trio on Friday 14 October

Norwich band The Marisca Trio perform an eclectic range of music. Traditional songs from the North East, Music Hall monologues, Shetland jigs, twin fiddle Polkas, French mazurkas and South American tangos are just some of the directions they may head in on any evening; mainly playing piano and fiddles, but sometimes bringing out a guitar, banjo or musical saw.
The trio are Bob Hanna, piano and vocals, and Suzie Hanna and Lucy Ellis on fiddles. Bob started singing in folk clubs in the late sixties up in Shotley Bridge, and he ran the Sheffield University Folk Club in the early seventies. Suzie and Lucy are sisters and have been playing fiddles together since childhood, making their debut at Studio 4 in the 1960s. They all used to play in the Oily Rag Band in Norwich in the eighties, and Suzie played in an all girl country band Way Out West in the nineties. They reckon Bob is Norwich’s answer to Violet Tulloch, so prepare to tap your feet!
This event starts at 7 pm and is a song session showcase. There will be opportunities for participation in the first half of the evening, so do bring instruments and voices. There is no charge, but there will be a tip jar and raffle to help with expenses. Bring your own drinks, and there will be teas and coffee in the kitchen (50 p). Shirley’s donation box will be on the counter for any contributions that you can spare for the local food bank.

Jon Wilks on Friday 30 September

At 7.30 pm on Friday 30 September we look forward to seeing Jon Wilks, an acclaimed fingerpicking guitarist and singer of traditional folk songs and broadside ballads from the English repertoire. Jon’s background as a journalist (a former editor of Time Out magazine and contributor to Dazed & Confused, The Guardian and other publications) means that he has a great eye/ear for a story, and this shows in his live shows – an amusing mix of folk song performance and storytelling.

Please let us know via our contact page if you would like us to put you on the list for tickets: £13 non-members, £10 club members. Bring your own drinks.

Dick Miles on Friday 2 September

On Friday 2 September, we welcome the accomplished singer and concertina-player Dick Miles, who has been singing and playing traditional music since he was 13. Dick lived for many years in Suffolk and some of his favourite songs are based on the superb traditional tales of East Anglia. Now living in the South-West of Ireland, Dick finds himself incorporating the local traditional music style into his own.

During the last 30 years Dick has been singing at maritime festivals, folk festivals and clubs all over the British and Irish Islands. He has also written two concertina tutors, one of which is on song accompaniment.

Guest nights start at 7.30 pm. Tickets £13 (£10 club members) can be reserved by emailing via our contact page. Teas and coffee are available in the kitchen, or you are welcome to bring your own drinks.

We continue to meet from 7 pm every Friday for song sessions throughout the summer. There is a tip jar for contributions to our costs.

Winter Wilson on Friday 22 July

Norwich Folk Club welcomes Winter Wilson at 7.30 pm on Friday 22 July. Kip Winter and Dave Wilson bring a sense of intimacy to every venue, blending superb, often hard-hitting original songs, stunning harmonies and musicianship with sometimes hilarious humour and tales of life on the road. Kip (vocals, accordion, guitar, flute) ​”simply has a voice to die for” (​ John Roffey, Maverick Magazine), whilst Dave (vocals, guitar and banjo) is now rightly recognized as being amongst the top tier of British songwriters, with his songs sung in folk clubs across the UK and beyond. Together, their voices are sublime.

Please let us know if you would like tickets (£10 members, £13 non-members) by emailing via the contact page. Bring your own drinks.