The nominees for the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards have been announced.

Irish folk singer Lisa O’Neill has been nominated for four awards: Folk Singer of the Year, Best Traditional Track (‘Factory Girl’ with Radie Peat), Best Original Track (‘Blackbird’), and Best Album for Heard a Long Gone Song. The album was released last October on the River Lea label and also received a nomination in the inaugural RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards.

Welsh harper Catrin Finch and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita have received two nominations (Best Album and Best Duo/Group), and Keita has also received a third as Musician of the Year. Finch and Keita’s duet album Soar has already won ‘Best Fusion’ album in the Songlines Music Awards and the fRoots Critics Album of the Year for 2018. The other nominees in Best Album are Flook’s Ancora and Hide and Hair by The Trials Of Cato. Voting for Best Album is open to the public in the UK.

Along with Finch and Keita, the groups Stick in the Wheel, The Breath and The Rheingans Sisters also received a nomination in the Best Duo/Group category. The other nominees for Best Musician of the Year are Jenn Butterworth, Mohsen Amini and Sam Sweeney.

Emerging artists and songs
Scots piper Brìghde Chaimbeul, who released The Reeling last year, produced by Lau’s Aidan O’Rourke, has received a nomination in the Horizon award (for emerging artists), along with Kinnaris Quintet, Kitty Macfarlane (who features on the Topic 80th anniversary album), and The Trials Of Cato, who won Best Emerging Artist/Band at the first Wales Folk Awards in April.

Ye Vagabonds, who received two nominations in the RTÉ Folk Awards last year, have been nominated for Best Traditional Track with ‘The Foggy Dew’ from their new album The Hare’s Lament. ‘Ffoles Llantrisant’ by VRï (which won the equivalent Welsh Folk Award with the same song) and ‘The Reedcutter’s Daughter’ by Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith have also been nominated, along with O’Neill and Peat.

Singers and musicians
The nominees for Folk Singer of the Year are Ríoghnach Connolly from Armagh, Olivia Chaney who has released two albums on the Nonesuch label, Gwilym Bowen Rhys (also Best Solo Artist at the Welsh Folk Awards) and O’Neill. 

Kris Drever from Lau has been nominated in the Best Original Track section for ‘Scapa Flow 1919’, about the scuttling of a German fleet in the Orkney Islands after World War I. Also nominated are ‘I Burn But I Am Not Consumed’ by Karine Polwart from her album Law of Motion, ‘O-U-T Spells Out’ by Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening (‘An ironic look at borders, walls, barriers, Brexit…’), and O’Neill’s ‘Blackbird’.

It has also been announced that Dervish will received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony. Commenting on the honour, the band’s accordionist Shane Mitchell said: ‘We are thrilled and so delighted to be receiving this very special honour at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, particularly as this is the 30th anniversary of the band.’ The group will perform on the night.

The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards take place at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester on 16 October as part of the Manchester Folk Festival. See the full list of nominees and listen to our playlist of all artists below. For more information, visit https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00yrkrj.

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Nominees 2019

Folk Singer of the Year
Gwilym Bowen Rhys
Lisa O’Neill
Olivia Chaney
Ríoghnach Connolly

Best Duo/Group
Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita
Stick in the Wheel
The Breath
The Rheingans Sisters

Horizon Award
Brìghde Chaimbeul
Kinnaris Quintet
Kitty Macfarlane
The Trials Of Cato

Best Traditional Track
‘Factory Girl’ by Lisa O’Neill featuring Radie Peat
‘Ffoles Llantrisant’ by VRï
‘The Foggy Dew’ by Ye Vagabonds
‘Reedcutter’s Daughter’ by Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith

Best Original Track
‘Blackbird’ by Lisa O’Neill
‘I Burn But I Am Not Consumed’ by Karine Polwart
‘O-U-T Spells Out’ by Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening
‘Scapa Flow 1919’ by Kris Drever

Best Album
Ancora by Flook
Heard a Long Gone Song by Lisa O’Neill
Hide and Hair by The Trials Of Cato
Soar by Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita

Musician of the Year
Jenn Butterworth
Mohsen Amini
Sam Sweeney
Seckou Keita