"Hypnotic and Elemental and Brilliant!"
- Adam Walton, BBC Introducing (latest release, from new album Fool's Journey/TAITH)
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Ailsa Mair creates elemental tapestries from her strings, voice and loop pedal -experimental folk offerings on the spectrum of grief and joy, woven with wild nature, magic and threads of Welsh language. She sings and plays at the same time (with cello & viola da gamba), sharing original songs, traditional Welsh folk arrangements and live improvisations from the heart with a truly unique voice.
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Ailsa has collaborated abundantly with many well known artists - musicians, storytellers, dancers, aerialists and illustrators - in performance and in session work. She has also worked extensively in theatre, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company (Cymbeline, 2023 + 2016/17).
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Ailsa is also a storyteller, and has just performed hers and Deb Winter's newly commissioned show Secrets & Silences at Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival, after co-winning the Gwobr Esyllt Award from Welsh Women's Storytelling collective Chwedl.
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From 2017-2021 Ailsa was one half of Tinc y Tannau, a trailblazing bass viol and voice duo with the late & extraordinary Sianed Jones.
Their music can be found HERE.
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Ailsa has also released several solo EPS of her own songs and is recording more this year. Find her work HERE.
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Please get in touch if you would like to book Ailsa for a solo show, collaboration, or session. Ailsa also teaches the art of embodied vocal improvisation. Contact her for details.
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"Hypnotic and Elemental and Brilliant"- Adam Walton, BBC Introducing
"If Steve Reich had written a soundtrack for the Canterbury tales....well it probably wouldn't have been as much fun as this. But it kind of makes me think of that. Very cool."
- listener, BBC Introducing (on 'FOOL', Feb 10th 2024)
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"You sound like a full-grown fairy and my Mum loves you"
- fan
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"Beautiful Cello Witch"
- fan