The BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award is an annual competition for young
folk musicians
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. It was first awarded in 1988 as the Young Tradition Award, taking its present name in 1998. Recent winners of the award include Brighde Chaimbeul,
Talisk
Talisk are a Scottish folk band composed of Mohsen Amini, Benedict Morris, and Graeme Armstrong. The band rose to prominence after winning the 2015 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award and the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards "Folk Band of the Yea ...
The Young Tradition Award was a competition for young players of traditional music which was awarded annually between 1988 and 1996. BBC presenter Jim Lloyd wanted to get funding and publicity for young folk musicians in the same way that young classical musicians were helped by the
BBC Young Musician
BBC Young Musician is a televised national music competition broadcast biennially on BBC Television and BBC Radio 3. Originally BBC Young Musician of the Year, its name was changed in 2010.
The competition, a former member of the European Unio ...
award, and in 1988 he created the Young Tradition Award with a grant of £500 from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. The title was a tribute to the 1960s folk group
The Young Tradition
The Young Tradition were an English folk group of the 1960s, formed by Peter Bellamy, Royston Wood and Heather Wood. They recorded three albums of mainly traditional British folk music, sung in arrangements for their three unaccompanied voices. ...
.
The following year the award was adopted by the BBC programme ''Folk On 2'' which Lloyd presented. Over the next six years, competitors included Carlene Anglim, Damien Barber, Pauline Cato, MacLaine Colston, Luke Daniels, Ingrid Henderson and
Catriona MacDonald
Catriona Macdonald is a musician and teacher from Shetland and is considered to be one of the world's leading traditional fiddle players.
Background
Macdonald started studying fiddle with Dr Tom Anderson MBE in 1981 at age 11 (she consider ...
.
In 1994 Lloyd wrote that the Award had been expanded to include traditional singers as well as instrumentalists, restricted to professional or semi-professional artists, and associated with a bursary of £1,000.
Lloyd retired from the BBC at the end of 1997, and a Young Tradition big band including all the previous winners performed on his final ''Folk On 2'' programme.
The BBC recreated an award from 1998, calling it the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award. Until 2005, the competition was run by
Folkworks {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022
Folkworks is a non-profit organisation based at The Sage Gateshead and a part of the North Music Trust. It runs many workshops, summer schools and festivals to promote and encourage the furtherance of folk music. ...
on behalf of the BBC. The entry criteria in 2005 were that the event was "open to anyone aged between fifteen and twenty, performing as a band, duo or soloist and performing traditional and acoustic music with roots in any culture", and these criteria have remained largely unchanged in subsequent years.
The short-listed finalists are invited to a residential weekend, as part of which they will perform in a public concert at which the winner is chosen by a judging panel.
Since 2011 the winner of the Young Folk Award has been announced at the main
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British ra ...
, which are broadcast on BBC Radio 2 with some highlights also televised. However the selection process for the Young Folk Award remains independent.
Young Folk Award finalists (1998–present)
;2019
: Maddie Morris
: The selection process changed again for the 2019 award. There were eight shortlisted acts, but only the winner was officially announced. Some of the finalists have identified themselves, including Jon Doran.
;2018
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;2017
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;2016
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;2015
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;2014
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;2013
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;2012
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; 2011
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: The number of finalists was reduced from six to four this year.
; 2010
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; 2009
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; 2008
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; 2007
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;2006
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;2004/5
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;2003
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;2002
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;2001
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;2000
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;1999
:422
; 1998
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Tim Van Eyken
Tim van Eyken (born 7 March 1978) is an English guitarist and melodeon player of Belgian descent.
Career
Van Eyken first started playing penny whistle after seeing James Galway on television. He graduated to playing for his mother, then a memb ...
Young Tradition Award finalists (1988–1996)
Information about the nominees in the earlier years is scarce.
; 1996
:
; 1995
; 1994
:
Kathryn Roberts
Kathryn Roberts is an English folk singer, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
Early career
Roberts' first released recordings were on the album ''Intuition'', a collection of songs by various South Yorkshire folk artists which also included he ...
Catriona MacDonald
Catriona Macdonald is a musician and teacher from Shetland and is considered to be one of the world's leading traditional fiddle players.
Background
Macdonald started studying fiddle with Dr Tom Anderson MBE in 1981 at age 11 (she consider ...
: Finalists this years included
Saul Rose
Saul Rose (born 1973) is an English folk melodeon player and singer.
Biography
Born in Harrow, he first picked up the melodeon after breaking his leg at the age of eleven and was taught his first tunes by his father.
After entering the BBC ...
.
; 1990
:Ingrid Henderson
; 1989
:
Simon Thoumire
Simon Thoumire is a Scottish musician and an English concertina virtuoso.
Thoumire has played all over the world. A winner of the BBC Radio 2 Young Tradition Award in 1989, Ian Carr among the finalists of the first competition, and Coxson's article quotes
Andy Cutting
Andy Cutting (born 18 March 1969) is an English folk musician and composer. He plays melodeon and is best known for writing and performing traditional English folk and his own original compositions which combine English and French traditions ...
on his participation.
See also
*
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British ra ...
*
BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician
The BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician competition has run annually since 2001.
It exists to encourage young musicians to keep their tradition alive and to provide performance opportunities, tools and advice to help contestants make ...