Award-winning folk duo bring festive tour to Torbay

Fougou Music, the Torbay based independent music promoter, is pleased to present multi award-winning and hugely influential contemporary folk musicians Jackie Oates and John Spiers.

They will bring their breadth of experience and shared love of English traditional folk tunes and songs to the Livermead Cliff Hotel in Torquay on Thursday, December 18 at 8pm.

Jackie Oates is synonymous with the reinvigoration of English folk. Her mellifluous voice, plaintive fiddle and tantalizing approach to traditional songs gained her several BBC Folk Awards. John Spiers has made a name for himself as one of the leading melodeon players of his generation.

A key part of the multi award-winning Bellowhead and also well known for his recent work with Peter Knight.

Their annual tour at Christmas promises to provide a beautiful and heart-warming antidote to the materiality that can be a feature of the festive season, as they perform captivating and unusual traditional Christmas carols and tunes from the UK and far beyond.

Read next: Hospital Radio: Two music legends to hit stage in Torbay

Although followers of British folk music will be familiar with Jackie and John from their other high calibre collaborations, their work as a duo began quite innocently and spontaneously when the pair first started playing together for fun during guest spots at a local folk club in Henley-on-Thames.

Recognising the potential, they began working together on material from their native county of Oxfordshire. Following their first performances in 2016, they went on to tour and perform at folk festivals in the UK, releasing their first full length studio album, Needle Pin, Needle Pin, in 2020.

Their latest album, a festive release entitled A Midwinter’s Night, is a joyous celebration of midwinter and all its shades, featuring multi-instrumental arrangements played by the duo on an array of melodeons, recorders and percussion.

It is the duo’s aim to inspire audiences through their shared love of Christmas time including the traditions and rituals that have for many years been an important feature of their individual family traditions.