Sam Sweeney has Folk’s Future Firmly in His Sights

Sam Sweeney at St Mary's Church (image credit: Jo Hughes)

Sam Sweeney Solo

Support: Elye Cuthbertson

21 June 2025, St Mary’s Church, Guildford

Followers of Sam Sweeney will be familiar with his commitment to music education. Long before he took on the inaugural role of artistic director for the National Youth Folk Ensemble (NYFE), he was letting us all into his secrets of how he breathes life into traditional tunes at the English Acoustic Collective Summer school, and at workshops, courses and “fiddle camps” up and down the country.

Sam’s return to St Mary’s during his latest solo tour gave us the opportunity to give a support slot to Elye Cuthbertson, a NYFE alumni and 2022 Future Makers award winner. Playing a set of largely self-penned tunes, Elye impressed and delighted us in equal measure.

With the audience skillfully warmed up by Elye, we were ready for Sam to turn up the groove and lay down a few favourite anecdotes. The one about the contents of Dave Swarbrick’s fiddle is a story we never tire of hearing, being both lovely and pretty gruesome at the same time!

We know Sam’s love of places with gorgeous acoustics and the Nave at St Mary’s more than stood up to the task. The voice of Swarb’s resonant fiddle still gives us a back-of-the-neck tingly feeling every time we hear it. Torn between not wanting the concert to end, and excited by the prospect of a Sam and Elye duo as an encore, the passing of time lost any regularity. These ephemeral moments are what make live music so intoxicating!

Fiddle Players Workshop - a tune played without a pulse is dead!

Sam Sweeney leading the afternoon fiddle workshop (image credit: Jo Hughes)

We’ve long realised that not all effortlessly brilliant musicians make good teachers. To Sam’s great credit, he’s applied himself to finding ways of making learning easier and endlessly fun. Anyone lucky enough to have attended his Essential Fiddle Technique or Leveret Musicians Week courses at Halsway Manor can attest to experiencing more than a few “Ah hah” moments, interspersed with open-mouthed awe and eye-watering giggles.

It was Sam who first gave us the idea of holding afternoon workshops before a gig. We catch ourselves doing a little chest puff when we look back at the line up of amazing musicians (Sam, Andy Cutting, Anne Niepold, Archie Churchill-Moss, Bevan Morris, Dave Malkin, Dave Shepherd, Grace Smith, Jo Freya, John Dipper, Jon Spiers, Kerry Fletcher, Peter Knight, Ryan Young, Sam Partridge and Tom Moore) who have taught at Folk Inspiration events and, as a result, made the future of folk a whole lot livelier and brighter.

Set List

Elye Cuthbertson

Home, Walking Home

Welcome Home Dona

April Distance

Easter Thursday (Traditional English)

November Sun

Sorry About All the Mustard

Feline Mazurka

Between Places

Sam Sweeney

Orange in Bloom

Untitled Waltz #1 / Tweedside

Old Ways Best / Booth’s Hornpipe

Untitled Waltz #2

The Old Captain

Cuckoo’s Nest / Old Oxford

Swarbrick Set

Red

Maid of the Mill

Minuets

Steppy Downs Road

Want to Fly Want to Flee

St Patrick’s Day / Young May Moon

Ellis Knowles #7 / The Honey Moon

Nelson’s Hornpipe

Princess Royal

Highway to Warrington

Encore: Sam and Elye

Winder’s Hornpipe / If You Will Not Have Me May You Let Me Go

Thank yous

To two amazing musicians, Sam Sweeney and Elye Cuthbertson. Please support them - visit their website, follow them on social media and subscribe to their mailing list.

Barbara, not only for her good company and help behind the bar, but also for coming all the way from Cardiff to do it!

You, our wonderful audience and workshop participants for supporting our events

And to my Mum for her knock out brownies and her unconditional love.