Bella Hardy

Acclaimed singer Bella Hardy, three times nominated in the BBC Folk Awards, has a voice marked as '...mesmerising' and '...faultless'.

Having spent ten years playing some of folk's biggest stages with festival regulars The Pack and Ola, she launched her debut solo album Night Visiting in Autumn 2007 to overwhelming critical support.

Bella has now established herself as one of the finest young folk acts around, singing unaccompanied ballads, or entwining her hypnotic voice with her own fiddle accompaniment to breathtaking effect. Bella is from Edale in Derbyshire's Dark Peak.

She performed in two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the first ever Folk Prom in July 2008, being honoured with the privilege of opening the event with a seof unaccompanied traditional songs. The programme was broadcast simultaneously by BBC 4 and Radio 3, and she also appeared on television on Christmas Day the same year, singing the Coventry Carol in Howard Goodalls The Truth about Carols on BBC2.

Bella's second album In the Shadow of Mountains (2009) was highly praised, with R2 Rock n' Reel Magazine writing "* * * * * 5 stars, In The Shadow of Mountains is stunning". However, it was Bella's song writing which was particularly noticed; "Surely no-one has any right to be writing songs with the sophistication of Sylvie Sovay, so early in their career...a mastery of melancholic melody and lyrical portraiture that brings to mind no less than Lennon and McCartney" (English Dance & Song magazine). Her song writing was also noted on Bella's first album Night Visiting (2007), for which Colin Irwin of fRoots wrote "...Bella Hardy is more than a new generation folk revivalist... Her potential is massive. Her ballad Three Black Feathers was nominated for Best Original Song in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2008, and has since been recorded by Jim Moray on his album Low Culture.

This winter Bella Hardy will be performing her new festive tour, Bright Morning Star, with special guests Anna Massie and Chris Sherburn. In Bella's north Derbyshire home, Christmas songs have long been the local speciality. People flock from far and wide to sing the Peak District's local carols, and in these dark months, the villages are lit up with song to celebrate the time of hope and community. This year, Bella takes this seasonal cheer on the road!

The Bright Morning Star tour features a repertoire of seasonal treats, from her local Castleton carols Down In Yon Forest and All in the Morning, to well known favourites O, Come All Ye Faithfull and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas!

Songs Lost & Stolen, the eagerly awaited first collection of completely new material from acclaimed singer and song writer Bella Hardy, will be released on May 1st 2011.