How can one summarise the significance of a musician when every detail deserves its own story? Kathryn Tickell has been shaping British folk music for decades. The singer and composer is the leading performer of the Northumbrian smallpipes. She has brought this type of bagpipes to international attention, and with it the unique sounds and myths of the region along Hadrian's Wall. The melodies breathe the centuries-old history of the rugged landscape, but there is nothing museum-like about them.

Her band is named after the old North English word for twilight and moves precisely in this twilight world: pipes and fiddle join synthesizers and modern beats, ballad-like motifs meet wild, breathless rhythms. This is folk as a living art, deeply connected to the historic kingdom of Northumbria and yet consistently forward-looking.

Photo Neil Denham