Best duo winners to visit Stowe this February

Jon and Jay both relinquished their respective full-time jobs as a teacher and GP back in 2016 and took a leap of faith into the music business – a gamble that almost immediately paid off. In 2017, they were nominated for a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award: one of the highest accolades in the world of folk music and clear recognition for their breath-taking harmonies and high production values.

Described by Mark Radcliffe as sounding ‘like two halves of one voice’ and by Mercury Music Prize nominee Kate Rusby as ‘absolutely amazing’, the Dorset-based duo combine trade-mark harmony singing and magical instrumentation, delivering original songs that are inspired and rooted in the landscape and history of the British Isles. As well as crafting unique and engaging original material, Ninebarrow also take a wide-range of traditional folk songs and rework them in their own, distinctive way.

Named after Nine Barrow Down in Dorset’s Purbeck hills, the duo have produced five critically acclaimed albums with their 2021 record, ‘A Pocket Full of Acorns’, released to a raft of four and five star reviews in the folk and mainstream media. This arboreal-titled album brought with it a very special initiative which saw the pair planting 1,000 native English trees (half of them oaks) and 200 shrubs to form The Ninebarrow Woodland on three acres of land near Gillingham in north Dorset – today the young woodland is burgeoning, alive with myriad avian visitors and a flower glade.

It is clear that the name of Ninebarrow has become synonymous with one word - quality - and as they celebrated their first decade, the Ninebarrow Woodland also went on to have a great impact on their fifth studio album. The highly atmospheric ‘The Colour of Night’ (released: 1st September 2023) was their first album in two-and-a-half years – and is a record that takes their remarkable success story to yet another level. The title track is a haunting, hymnal-like soliloquy inspired by Jay’s night time vigil in the woodland one summer evening.

Says Jon: “This collection is released in the tenth year since we picked up a ukulele and decided to have a go at singing some songs together. We feel like we’ve come a long way since then - we’re packing a few more instruments in the car for a start! The world has certainly felt a bit topsy-turvy since our last album but we are lucky to have received wonderful support that kept our spirits high – some of the songs here reflect that sentiment.”

Because of the strong link between Ninebarrow’s music and the Dorset landscape, the duo were invited to record a segment for BBC1's Countryfile in March 2021 and have also received wide-ranging coverage on BBC Radio 2, 3, 4 and 6.

Thursday night’s concert starts at 7:30pm (with doors at 7pm) and tickets are available from www.ninebarrow.co.uk/gigs or the Stowe Presents website www.stowe.co.uk/stowepresents.