Anna Esslemont
Composer / Musician
The Sisters of Elva Hill & A Waulking Song
After training at the Royal Northern College of Music, Anna founded folk trio Uiscedwr who very quickly won widespread critical acclaim with their genre crossing fiddle-led creations. The band won the BBC Young Folk Award then proceeded to release four albums, touring extensively across the UK and Europe for ten years. Anna is also a well-known session musician and regularly writes and records violin and vocals for a broad range of artists including New Model Army, Long Walk Short Dock (Canada) and Declan Bennett. Anna has received the PRS Foundation ATOM Award for music writing and has also collaborated with Irish traditional dancer James Devine in his show Tapeire. Described by BBC Radio 2 as "effortlessly epic", Anna brings fiery enthusiasm and a unique heartfelt lyricism to every performance and recording.