BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer Of The Year 2018, Karine Polwart is a multi-award-winning Scottish songwriter and musician, as well as a theatre maker, storyteller, spoken-word performer and published essayist. Her songs combine folk influences and myth with themes as diverse as Donald Trump’s corporate megalomania, Charles Darwin’s family life and the complexities of modern parenthood. She sings traditional songs too and writes to commission for theatre, animation and thematic collaborative projects. Karine is six-times winner at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, including twice for Best Original Song.
In association with The Royal Lyceum Theatre and Edinburgh International Festival 2016, Karine wrote, musically directed, and performed Wind Resistance, her critically acclaimed debut work for theatre. A poetic meditation on midwifery, ecology, sanctuary, and solidarity, it combines elements of memoir, essay, myth, sound art and song. Wind Resistance won the BEST MUSIC & SOUND AWARD at the CATS (Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland) 2017 and Karine was also shortlisted for the BEST ACTOR 'Scottish Oscar' in the Sunday Herald Culture Awards.
UNCUT 8/10 "Easily her most ambitious record to date. Considered, compassionate and intricate..."
THE OBSERVER ★★★★ "Assured and atmospheric"
THE ARTS DESK ★★★★ "Strong, empathic songs as full and rounded as the globe itself"
THE SKINNY ★★★★…
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A POCKET OF WIND RESISTANCE SHORTLISTED FOR SAY AWARD 2018
We are very chuffed to announce that Karine and Pippa's album has been chosen for the SAY shortlist alongside 9 other great Scottish albums.
Karine also made the shortlist…
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CELTIC CONNECTIONS | KARINE POLWART & KRIS DREVER WITH SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Longtime Celtic Connections-goers might remember Karine Polwart and Kris Drever’s festival debuts, around about the millennium, as exciting new talents with Malinky and Fine Friday respectively. Today, each ranks among the UK’s foremost singer-songwriters. Following her hugely-lauded theatre work Wind Resistance, Polwart’s sixth solo album, Laws of Motion, garnered further glowing reviews in 2018, while Drever’s third, 2016’s If Wishes Were Horses, foregrounded his superb original songcraft alongside the vocal and guitar skills also deployed with Lau. Onstage together tonight, they première sumptuous orchestral versions of songs old and new, arranged by Pippa Murphy and Kate St John. Supported through the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund.
A major hit at 2018’s Edinburgh International Festival, Karine Polwart’s Scottish Songbook reveals yet another dimension to the singer-songwriter’s multi-award-winning artistry, in between her hugely lauded theatre project Wind Resistance and her newly released sixth solo album, Laws of Motion. The Herald’s five-star review called it “a mighty celebration which bounced between giddy veneration and daring reinvention,” extolling both Polwart’s selection and delivery of her favourite Scottish pop songs, covering authors from Chvrches to Ivor Cutler, John Martyn to the Proclaimers, Strawberry Switchblade to The Blue Nile.
“I come to the rich archive of Scottish pop music with a folk singer’s heart,” Polwart wrote in a preview article. “I dig into the songs that connect with me, as centuries-old ballads often do, for their ability to reveal something about living here, in this place, right now.” She reprises the show here with her crack backing line-up of Steven Polwart, Inge Thomson, Louis Abbott, Calum McIntyre and Graeme Smillie.
Karine Polwart & Kaia Kater This special double bill looks back to Scottish and Canadian roots while creating a progressive and thrilling new brand of music.
Karine Polwart is a multi-award–winning Scottish songwriter, spoken word performer, and essayist. She performs traditional music, as well as her own strikingly original, deeply personal songs.
Kaia Kater was born of African-Caribbean descent in Quebec. Her marvelously original music is influenced by the Canadian folk music of her parents and the years she studied and performed Appalachian music in West Virginia.
