Gig: Simon Mayor, Hilary James & Ben Walker

Simon Mayor is one of the world’s leading mandolin virtuosos and composers for the instruments. His many faceted career includes his own series on BBC Radio 2, an album in the Classic FM Top Ten chart and causing mayhem at a Canadian humour festival, but maintains his most thrilling moment was a journey through the square window on BBC’s Playschool!

Simon's playing moves effortlessly between classical, traditional folk, jazz & blues. With dazzling technical skills grace all the music he plays. Also a fine guitarist & fiddle player, Simon has a delicious sense of humour & great teaching ability.

Hilary James’ first became entranced by folk music in primary school. The school, in the middle of a large council estate, was incredibly fortunate to have a music teacher who introduced the children to The Oxford Book of English Folk Song as well as the songs of Vaughan Williams and Thomas Arne.  Discovering folk clubs in her early teens, Hilary went on to run the Reading University Folk Club alongside singing with the University Big Band and taking lessons with the late Margaret Field-Hyde, one of the greatest singers of Purcell and Vaughan Williams of her generation.

Hilary has recorded six critically acclaimed solo song albums including English Sketches, which appeared in the Sunday Times Ten Best World Music Albums of the Year. Her voice is quintessentially English but easily crosses the great musical divides from British folk song to blues and Berlioz.  A multi-instrumentalist she is renowned for an unlikely taste in bass instruments (including her amazing giant mandobass).  A fine guitarist, she accompanies Simon Mayor on everything from a Brazilian Tango to a Vivaldi concerto.  She tours and records regularly with Simon, their mandolin quartet The Mandolinquents, and Slim Panatella and the Mellow Virginians, (western swing and American traditional music).

BBC Folk Award winner Ben Walker was recently hailed as one of ‘the best acoustic guitarists in the world right now’ by Total Guitar magazine. A versatile composer and producer, as well as a celebrated instrumentalist, his passion is putting old jewels in new settings. Ben’s signature style has been sought out from punk to Proms, from Rough Trade to the Royal Shakespeare Company. His solo album, Echo, was released in July 2019 to critical acclaim and his characteristically warm, whimsical and virtuosic solo set regularly delights folk audiences in the UK and further afield.