Will Pound & Jenn Butterworth

22 Oct 2023

Philharmonic Hall

A chance meeting at a folk session in 2018 led to Will and Jenn’s music travelling around the world as a viral TikTok sensation in lockdown. In their live shows they play a game of ‘musical cat and mouse’; improvising and responding to each other, weaving virtuosic performances that are unique and in-the-moment as only two musicians highly accomplished in their craft can produce. Their debut album, Volume 1, was recorded live, over two days in Glasgow, and released earlier this year.

Jenn Butterworth is one of the most notable folk guitarists in the UK acoustic music scene. In recent years she was awarded ‘Musician of the Year’ from the Scots Trad Music Awards and was nominated for the same title in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. An excellent collaborator, she works with a range of high profile folk music projects, including Ross Ainslie and Ali Hutton’s SYMBIOSIS, award-winning folk powerhouses Kinnaris Quintet, Treacherous Orchestra and Fiddlers’ Bid, and supergroup ‘Songs of Separation’ involving an array of prominent folk artists including Eliza Carthy, Lady Maisery and Karine Polwart.

Will Pound is one of the finest harmonica and melodeon players of his generation, a musician of extraordinary virtuosity and improvisational skill, combined with deep traditional roots. Will has pushed the technical boundaries and repertoires of these instruments in projects and line-ups past and present with musicians including Eddy Jay, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Liz Carrol, Martin Simpson, Guy Chambers, Concerto Caledonia, and Robbie Williams. In 2012 he played the signature harmonica break on the Christmas No.1 single ‘He Ain’t Heavy: He’s My Brother’ with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Justice Collective, including Sir Paul McCartney, Beverley Knight, Mick Jones and Shane McGowan, produced in support of the Hillsborough families.