Alistair Anderson

About Alistair Anderson

5 decades as a leading figure in folk and traditional music. Touring soloist with 37 tours of USA, 5 of Australia and numerous round Europe and UK. Composer working to extend the horizons of traditional music from within. His first extended composition, Steel Skies, was described by The Guardian as “The finest recent original contribution to the tradition of English music." While most of his compositions have been for musicians based in folk and traditional music he was commissioned by the Lyndsay String Quartet to write a piece, On Cheviot Hills, for concertina and sting quartet. He worked with jazz trombonist Annie Whitehead to compose for a mixed folk and jazz ensemble for Bath International festival later toured from Southampton to Shetland. He has composed for professional theatre productions, community band, for schools, for a mixed group of Moravian and Northumbrian musicians even for the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Anderson’s passionate belief that traditional music has an important place in contemporary society led him to find ways to excite a new generation of young musicians and draw them into playing, singing, dancing and making the tradition their own. He poured huge amounts of energy into this work through Folkworks, which he founded in 1986, and the folk music degree at Newcastle University, which he launched in 2001. Folkworks became one of the founding partners, alonside the Northern Sinfonia, of Sage Gateshead ( now The Glasshouse International Center for Music) In 2022 he collaborated with Dan Walsh and Kashmiri singer Lala Qadeer and Khalil Anjum, tabla, to create a cross cultural concert for Folk Expo in Manchester.
He continues to perform as a soloist and in duo with Dan Walsh (banjo, guitar and vocals) and with various ensembles.
“He remains one of this country’s most majestic and inclusive instrumentalists” Colin Irwin fROOTS