Andy Cutting & Nigel Eaton

Andy Cutting is a rarity. A musician’s musician (BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Winner Best Musician 2008, 2011 & 2016): a soulful and technically outstanding melodeon practitioner with an ear for a fine tune. Many of his tunes have been purloined along the way: some considered contemporary classics on the folk scene. But then, Andy is also a warm and emotive performer, modestly engaging his audiences with his self-deprecating wit and then flooring them with downright staggering musicianship. There are few melodeon players who put so much feeling into their playing, whether it is a set of dance tunes, or accompaniment to a slow English ballad.

Andy has been consistent musical force since he came swiftly to prominence with the innovative Blowzabella. As well as a thorough grounding in the English tradition, Andy’s influences extend way beyond these isles, particularly to the music of Central France and to the storming Quebecois tradition. These influences will be well-known to all those familiar with Andy’s duo with English fiddle player, guitarist and singer, Chris Wood. Wood & Cutting became one of the most influential, and enduring, duos on the scene; paving the way for the explosion of many of today’s thrusting young newcomers.

Andy’s commitment to, and sense of pride in traditional music, as well as his sensitivity and understanding of the form, has made him one of the folk scene’s most wanted, playing with Kate Rusby, John McCusker and Under One Sky to name but a few. There is also a growing demand for him to play outside this genre (having recorded with Sting, John Illsley (Dire Straits) but most recently being asked to join The Who for an acoustic concert in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. As well as his ongoing work with Blowzabella, Andy currently tours with his trio Leveret (Andy Cutting, Sam Sweeney, Rob Harbron) and with Anglo-French acoustic dance band, Topette, in a new duo with Belgian diatonic accordion player Anne Niepold, and in a duo with Gudrun Walther.

“Hearing Andy Cutting play is like going through the wardrobe and finding Narnia. His music is glorious, joyful, moving, subtle, emotionally charged, a totally spell-binding experience that is never long enough.” – June Tabor

“Andy is the consumate accompanist, harmonically, rhythmically and melodically and an exquisite soloist. There is no one I’d rather work with.” – Martin Simpson

www.Andy-Cutting.co.uk

Nigel Eaton is a British multi-instrumentalist and composer best known for playing the hurdy-gurdy. Born in Lyndhurst, Eaton played the piano and cello before switching to the hurdy-gurdy in 1981 when his father, Christopher Eaton, began manufacturing them. Eaton has been described as the “foremost hurdy-gurdy player in popular music in North America and Europe”.

Eaton has performed as a member of a number of different bands, including Whirling Pope Joan (with Julie Murphy), Blowzabella, Ancient Beatbox, The Duellists, and Firestarters of Leiden. He has released three solo albums, Panaterra (2024), The Music of the Hurdy-Gurdy (1987) and Pandemonium (2002), and the collaborative album Panic at the Café (1993) with Andy Cutting. Eaton has collaborated and recorded with a wide range of other artists including Afro Celt Sound System, Loreena McKennitt, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Scott Walker, Shelleyan Orphan, New London Consort, Heidi Berry, Gary Kemp, Bombay Bicycle Club, Blue Aeroplanes, Martin Simpson, The Palladian Ensemble, Moya Brennan, Robert Plant, Maddy Prior, June Tabor, Silly Sisters, The Tavener Consort, Jake Walton, and Hamish Moore.

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