Maddy Prior & Forgotten Lands

Maddy Prior & Forgotten Lands

Performance & Vocal Workshops

Exploration of the human voice through original, traditional & acappella pieces.

With Maddy Prior and Rose-Ellen Kemp, Andrew Sinclair (Steeleye Span guitarist) and Ruth Elder (viola and piano).

Maddy Prior & Forgotten Lands is both a performance and an opportunity to learn, experience & explore traditional folk song with some of the very best vocal teachers in the business. 

Maddy and Rose-Ellen have taught vocal technique and song together for over fifteen years, leading weekend-long courses throughout the year at their voice studio retreat Stones Barn in Cumberland. They love to sing harmony together and so have reimagined some of their own compositions, especially those originally created for voices, into four parts for the band to perform. They have also chosen some very special songs from the tradition and other artists to perform alongside them.

The band’s sound is based around their four part harmony along with Ruth’s virtuosic viola playing which goes from dream-like wistfulness all the way through to thick, textured rhythmic crunch. This works in a powerful tandem with Andrew’s extraordinarily intuitive guitar skills, creating wide scapes of drone, arpeggio and full-tilt riffs.

The themes they most often gravitate towards are three-fold. Firstly, Border Ballads and songs about the Border Reivers based on stories and traditions from the areas they live in Cumberland. Secondly, songs from a female perspective, often focusing on encouraging and giving voice to those movements which chime for equality. Thirdly, a universal topic; the human condition. Songs that we can all relate to aspects of, about love, family and our world.

The performance is all at once harmonically impressive and challenging, entertaining, uplifting and light-hearted, thoughtful and eclectic.