Bella Gaffney, Dan Webster

2016 Celtic Connections Danny Kyle Award winner Bella Gaffney hails from Bradford. She writes folk inspired songs which she performs along with her own original arrangements of traditional pieces. In 2018 she was one of the first recipients of a Friends Of Towersey Festival Award for music developmental support and opportunities.

She has played at a great many folk and music festivals over the last few years, including Celtic Connections, Beverley, HebCelt, ButeFest, Dent, Shrewsbury, Otley, Southwell, BAAFest, & Filey to name just a few. 2017 saw the release of her solo album ‘Heaven Knows’ with Folkstock, to great reviews.

Dan Webster has been described as ‘one of the U.K’s best kept musical secrets and one not to miss!’, ‘Achingly lovely, like sun breaking on a rain swept highway…’ RnR and an ‘An insightful lyricist with a great voice’ Acoustic Magazine. According to Americana UK - ‘He is the missing link, the joining point, where folk fuses with country – as good as you’ll hear on any record out of Austin or Nashville - beautiful – he is Anglicana’. Dan is a road-seasoned English singer-songwriter and guitarist, his music is influenced by the sounds and storytelling traditions of Americana, which he uniquely melds with an honest Northern English perspective in his songwriting. His sound is unashamedly influenced by the US - his heart remains a Yorkshireman’s.