Chatterbox with Mel Biggs

Sophie Petkevich is a professional multi-instrumentalist, composer, and musicologist currently based in Novi Sad, Serbia. After graduating from the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, she worked for many years as a composer for art-house animation, with films featuring her music receiving awards at international festivals. She has long been immersed in the world of European folk music, performing with n...

Anna Pack is a musician and dancer with a long-standing interest in European traditional dance, performing in duos with Blowzabella's Dave Shepherd (R.I.P.), Nigel Eaton, Hekety's Jo Veal and in the trio Oscina. Anna and I have travelled together to many a festival and workshop in England, France and Belgium. We've also been lucky enough to share the stage a couple of times to play with legends Ri...

Nick has performed and taught professionally since 2010 after completing the BMus Folk and Traditional Music with a 1st from Newcastle University. Since then, he has been part of various musical projects both in the UK and abroad. In 2015 Nick joined the Germany-based Irish music trio ‘Iontach’ with Siobhán Kennedy and Jens Kommnick and toured all over the country performing and giving workshops i...

Katie Howson, often thought of as a one-row player but these days she plays mainly D/G, is best known as a driving force in a number of significant English ceilidh bands including the Old Hat Dance Band and PolkaWorks, playing melodeon and harmonica. She grew up in the East Anglian tradition, playing alongside legendary musicians such as Oscar Woods and Dolly Curtis, but all along, she has had a v...

Join Mel this month as she sits down for a long-awaited catch up with Filippo Gambetta since meeting him at Halsway Manor Melodeon Study Week 2023. During that week, Filippo shared stories, videos and field recordings that he had made across several trips to Madagascar. During his time on the island, he has been able to visit different communities, take lessons with native diatonic accordion playe...

Jo Freya is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter and composer based in Nottinghamshire, England. Over an extensive career spanning five decades she has been part of some of the most groundbreaking acts on the British Folk Scene. Her journey started when she was 14 in The Old Swan Band – a band that explored and reaffirmed the joyousness of English traditional music, at a time when most En...

Mel Biggs is a Morris dancer, musician, and highly-renowned melodeon tutor based in Derbyshire, England. In her professional career, Mel has risen from the EFDSS Aspire program with Andy Cutting to form Moirai with Jo Freya and Sarah Matthews. Together they created 3 albums and toured the UK and Europe, culminating in their self-penned show Framed: The Alice Wheeldon Story telling a true story of...

Roger Watson has been playing melodeon for 55 of his 78 years. Known for his work as a member of Muckram Wakes and The New Victory Band in the 1970s, he published a tutor method in 1980: the Handbook for Melodeon, on behalf of Hohner. Later he worked as Artistic Director of TAPS, a folk development organisation, where he used his melodeon and knowledge of English traditional music to create projec...

Sophie Cavez is a self-taught diatonic accordionist and electric bassist from Belgium. She has firmly established herself in the world of button accordion music, leading her own projects and offering her talent to others in the worlds of concert, balfolk, theatre and storytelling. She has spread a new diatonic sound across the Belgian and international stages, combining power, charm, and sensitivi...

Bruno Le Tron is a diatonic accordionist based in Brittany, France. It was in the 1980s that he discovered folk dance and Fest-Noz and developed a passion for the diatonic accordion. A few years later, his encounter with Jean Blanchard and Evelyne Girardon marked the beginning of his professional career. In 1990, Bruno wrote his first album, the famous "Valhermeil". What followed was a succession...

Judy Minot is a music educator and musician, and the author of the award-winning book Best Practice, Inspiration and Ideas for Traditional Musicians. She plays piano, accordion (piano and bisonoric), and fiddle in a range of styles including Celtic, Québécois, Playford, jazz, and contra. Judy believes in the power of trad/folk music to bring richness to our adult lives. “Amateur” musicians often c...

Chris Hall is a 5-time award winning accordion player / vocalist / harmonica / bass / guitar / drums who, it’s said, almost single handedly introduced the sounds of Cajun and Zydeco swamp music to the UK. His first band 'RCajun and the Zydeco Brothers' and founding The Derby Swamp Club started an avalanche of interest in this music. He has headlined festivals all over Europe appearing in several o...

Simon Care started playing melodeon at the age of 10, after failing terribly at the Piano Accordion. Playing for Moulton Morris, under the watchful eye of Dave Jolly he eventually ended up playing in the local morris ceilidh band, Captain Thunderbox. After depping in The Cock and Bull Band for Dave Whetstone, he was invited to join The Albion Band. He toured with them for 8 years and recorded 6 al...

Frankie Insley is a multi instrumentalist based in Newcastle who has a deep love for the one-row melodeon and fiddle. After discovering folk through Morris dancing as a teenager, and completing the Newcastle University Folk Music Degree, she has become a passionate advocate for the joy of folk. Frankie is an absolute force for community folk music and dance. She is the founder of DIY Ceilidh, a ch...

An accordionist, violinist, singer, composer, and arranger, Martin's artistic approach is open and curious about different aesthetics, from dance music, bal folk, jazz, musette, gypsy swing, contemporary and improvised music. Martin began playing for Balfolk at the age of 13. He built a solid background focused on the traditional music of Western Europe and has been sharing his skills since a youn...

Join me this month as I sit down to chat with Archie Churchill-Moss who has worked as a session musician for some of the UK's top folk acts (Seth Lakeman, Sam Sweeney, Cara Dillon, Eliza Carthy, Blair Dunlop, Jim Moray) and producers (Andy Bell, Ed Harcourt). Performing with trio 'Moore, Moss, Rutter' saw him receive the coveted BBC Radio 2 Folk Award in 2011. Archie has toured extensively across...

Leija Lautamaja is a Helsinki-based artist and musician specialised in Finnish and Nordic folk music & dance. Her instruments are 2.5 row diatonic accordion, reed organ, electric guitar and voice. She has a Master’s degree in folk music from the Sibelius Academy, with her musical roots in the local traditions of Southern Ostrobothnia in Western Finland where she grew up surrounded by the livin...

Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne is well known on the English folk scene for his work with the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nominated trio ‘Granny’s Attic’ and as a soloist. Originally from Birmingham, Cohen developed a keen love for melodeons and concertinas while still at primary school. Cohen’s main passion is for English traditional music and song, but his musical interests run broader than that, into Bar...

John Spiers is famously one of the busiest and most unavailable box players on the English folk music circuit. Most well known for his long-term collaboration with Jon Boden in Spiers & Boden, and together co-founding their multi-award winning global phenomenon big band Bellowhead, John can also be seen playing with Steeleye Span's Peter Knight as a duo, Peter's Gigspanner Big Band, and Saltli...

Martin Ellison is a gem of the traditional English folk music scene. Hailing from Leyland in the industrial North West of England, he's had an affinity with Southern English Country Music since his early teens. Growing up through the revival of the late 60s and 70s he was exposed to a variety of influential folkies including Bernard Wrigley "The Bolton Bullfrog", Shirley and Dolly Collins, Mike Ha...

Do you reflect on how familar spaces, people, events shape you over time? Do you ever think about how these situations affect you positively/negatively, internally/externally? How can we build better 'nests' to nurture ourselves and others, allowing the discovery and development of our real abilities and talents? Big questions for a Monday morning! But don't let that put you off. Join me and Lucy...

As a player of an instrument, have you ever thought to take musical inspiration from another? How would you go about doing that? Do beards make you a better bird watcher? How does Rapper dance culture differ from the rest of the Morris/English folk dance world? These questions and more covered in this month's episode! Will Allen is an English melodeon, fiddle, and banjo player. Having gained quite...

How does one dance and play at the same time with a 6kg instrument strapped to them? How many jobs can one switch with Tim Van Eyken? Why should everyone try Morris dancing at least once in their lifetime? And how do you leave a job with AstraZeneca in a blaze of glory to become a full-time musician? ... this, and many more questions answered in this month's Very Lovely Chat! Saul Rose is an Engli...

Have you ever considered what it's like to grow up as a woman on the English folk scene? How can you evolve as an artist and learn to own your artistic voice? How can we collectively empower other women and young girls to take up leading roles in creative careers? And why are good reels so hard to find for the melodeon?! My guest this month is singer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist Hazel Ask...

Did you know that silent movies are still a thing? And who knew that diatonic accordion works so well in Baroque music?! And what's this about a Belgian footbass? Benjamin Macke is a French accordionist, composer, teacher and Belgian basse au pied revivalist living in Belgium. His musical style is rather blended, having started out as a classical percussionist, jazz drummer and trombonist, he play...