This Willowed Light

Maz O'Connor is a gifted singer of traditional and self-penned songs. In 2013 she was nominated for the BBC Folk Awards Horizon Award and selected for a creative fellowship with the English Folk Dance and Song Society at London's Cecil Sharp House, funded by the BBC Performing Arts Fund. She sings both traditional folk songs and her own compositions, and accompanies her uniquely pure voice with guitar, shruti box (an idea she 'nicked' off Karine Polwart), piano and harmonium. While at Cambridge reading English that she fell in love with the folk songwriters of the 1960s; Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Neil Young. These influences, along with her literary leanings, make 'This Willowed Light' such an intriguing work. She effortlessly blends traditional material such as the Child Ballad 'The Grey Selkie' with intelligent, original songs like 'Derby Day' (which commemorates the death of suffragette Emily Wilding Davison) and 'The Mississippi Woman' (a feminist rewrite of the Adam-and-Eve story), which she was commissioned to write by Broadstairs Folk Festival. 2013 was a busy year for Maz: alongside her BBC fellowship, and singing Laura Marling's music in the RSC's 'As You Like It', she found time to team up with the highly acclaimed producer and award- winning folk artist Jim Moray to record 'This Willowed Light', her extraordinary second album. Together they crafted this beautiful record which unites Maz's contemporary sound with her love of traditional folk song. When 'Derby Day' was recently 'Song of the Day' on Folk Radio UK, Moray said of the album: 'I think it's the best thing I've ever worked on'. It may be the best folk album, perhaps even the best album, you hear all year.