Singer and harpist Rachel Newton draws on poems and ballads that are hundreds of years old, working them into her contemporary compositional style to create a rich sound that is ambitious, original and unique.
Rachel works across a range of performance platforms including theatre and storytelling. A skilled collaborator, Rachel is a founder member of The Shee , The Furrow Collective and is a part of the Lost Words: Spell Songs . She has recently launched the new duo project Heal & Harrow with long time friend and colleague
Lauren MacColl.
Rachel has been awarded Musician of the Year at both the Scots Trad Music Awards and the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Her album Here’s My Heart Come Take It was shortlisted as one of Scotland’s top 10 outstanding albums in the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award. She was awarded a Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland (CATS) for Best Music and Sound for her work with the Rowantree Theatre Company Co-founder of The Bit Collective, a group focusing on equality and diversity in folk and traditional music, Rachel has organised various campaigns and events, including the Trad. Reclaimed: Women in Folk festival at Kings Place, London in 2019.
Rachel’s previous solo releases are The Shadow Side (2012), Changeling (2014)s My Heart Come Take It (2016) and West (2018). November 2020 marked the release of her fifth solo album To The Awe, based particularly around women’s experience.
‘A beauty’ **** Observer
‘Haunting and compelling’ **** The Guardian
‘Harp and strings blur the border between worlds’; **** The Financial Times
‘This is the sound of modern Scotland, as surely as draws on folklore and tradition, Newtons’ singing and harp at the heart of a singular vision.’ **** The Herald
Rachel is appearing on Saturday September the 4th at the Quarrymen’s Arts Centre, Hill Street Creetown. Advance tickets are available from www.ticketsource.co.uk/quarrymensartscentre or the Midsteeple box office. 01387 253383. For further info please find the Quarrymen’s Arts Centre on Facebook.
