More visiting bands on the Brookfield Knights roster

The UK's Brookfield Knights agency (BK) sends two more e-newsletters concerning impressive string bands from Canada who will be visiting these islands in the next ten months. The first introduces The Fretless (photo right; also on Facebook), a multi-award-winning group playing tradition-based music arranged for three fiddles and cello. They played Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival earlier this year and will be back for the Shetland Folk Festival and Edinburgh’s TradFest. BK has just confirmed them for a festival appearance in Ireland in this coming May (no details given), and the band has set aside the first two weeks of that month to be available for add-on dates in both the UK and Ireland. A video of them at the Whitstable Sessions in Kent in February is here. Let BK know if you’d like to book them for a slot in May and (if possible) on what date/s.

The second introduces the Andrew Collins Trio, another multi-award-winning unit with closer links to bluegrass: the BIB editor first met Andrew, a founder member of the Creaking Tree String Quartet, at IBMA's World of Bluegrass. He and Mike Mezzatesta both play fiddle, guitar, and instruments of the mandolin family, with James McEleney on bass, mandocello, and vocals. They will have a new album out before their tour in these islands in the period 4-22 Jan. 2019. Sample tracks can be heard on their page on the BK website. An introductory video is here. Let BK know if you want to book them in the proposed period.