Cara Dillon

Folk with Cara Dillon

---

Cara Dillon vocals, guitar  Sam Lakeman piano, guitar

---

Programme Notes (also available free at concert)

Cara Dillon is one of the finest exponents of traditional Irish song anywhere in the world. She was awarded the All Ireland singing trophy when she was only 14 and has subsequently won at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards three times and been nominated on a further six occasions. Together with her husband and musical partner, Sam Lakeman, she’s successfully steered an eclectic musical path, defying typical pigeonholes, and is celebrated for marrying the traditional with the contemporary.

Cara admits to being no purist, making music that reaches beyond the constraints and limitations of tradition: “To me, you can go anywhere with every song. The melody and message is at the forefront of everything I do. I don’t really care where the song came from, how old it is, and who did it first. It’s whether it strikes a note in my heart, does it haunt me, do I need to sing it?”

Raised in the small village of Dungiven in Northern Ireland, she feels strongly that “I am part of a continuing story, a story that’s still unfolding, that reaches back through songs I’ve grown up with, and uncles that emigrated to America, and stuff that happened in my own family, and reaches forward to stuff that’s still happening now.”

As well as songs from her traditional repertoire, Cara will also be singing material from her latest album, Coming Home, which embodies her sense of heritage - the present day being just a part of one long continuum.