Bellows and Buttons
Music Tuition Weekends
Tutors
Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, Katie Howson, Dave Gray, Vicky Cooper and Helena Painting.
Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne
Described in The Living Tradition as ‘captivating, bold and striking’, Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne is at the forefront of his generation of English folk musicians as both a powerful and commanding singer and a masterful player of the Anglo concertina and melodeon.
Cohen’s music is rooted in the English folk tradition, celebrating the age-old musical heritage of this broad and diverse land. Traditional ballads, songs and tunes form the basis of Cohen’s material, but with a smattering of early music, ragtime, and music hall thrown in for good measure along with regular forays into the music of the Caribbean.
Cohen has released three critically acclaimed solo albums; his debut Outway Songster (2017) was described in fRoots as ‘the best debut album by a young British performer for many a day’ and led to Cohen being nominated for the Horizon Award for best newcomer at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2018. Rakes & Misfits (2021) followed with Cohen exploring songs and stories of social outcasts and reprobates. In 2024 Cohen released his ground-breaking Play Up The Music which explores the little-known connection between English folk and the music of the Caribbean and Black America. The album received widespread critical acclaim along with national airplay, an extensive feature in The Guardian and landed Cohen with a slot on BBC 1.
Cohen burst onto the folk scene in his teens with the energetic and much-loved trio Granny’s Attic, who continue to enrapture audiences with their unique high-octane take on English traditional music. Alongside this, Cohen also tours with Angeline Morrison’s Sorrow Songs Band, with Reg Meuross’s Stolen from God and with The Demon Barbers, and has also enjoyed alongside one-off collaborations with such folk luminaries as John Spiers, John Kirkpatrick and Jim Moray.
Additionally, Cohen has featured extensively on soundtracks for television and theatre – his concertina can be heard on the hit Apple TV series Bad Sisters and he has toured nationally with the children’s theatre show Tales from the Lighthouse.
Cohen’s passion for the English folk tradition has also led to work in research, publishing, and teaching. So far Cohen has been involved in publishing four books of English folk songs, has given several talks on the subject, and has worked with hundreds of students across the globe from school children to pensioners.
Cohen’s music is rooted in the English folk tradition, celebrating the age-old musical heritage of this broad and diverse land. Traditional ballads, songs and tunes form the basis of Cohen’s material, but with a smattering of early music, ragtime, and music hall thrown in for good measure along with regular forays into the music of the Caribbean.
Cohen has released three critically acclaimed solo albums; his debut Outway Songster (2017) was described in fRoots as ‘the best debut album by a young British performer for many a day’ and led to Cohen being nominated for the Horizon Award for best newcomer at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2018. Rakes & Misfits (2021) followed with Cohen exploring songs and stories of social outcasts and reprobates. In 2024 Cohen released his ground-breaking Play Up The Music which explores the little-known connection between English folk and the music of the Caribbean and Black America. The album received widespread critical acclaim along with national airplay, an extensive feature in The Guardian and landed Cohen with a slot on BBC 1.
Cohen burst onto the folk scene in his teens with the energetic and much-loved trio Granny’s Attic, who continue to enrapture audiences with their unique high-octane take on English traditional music. Alongside this, Cohen also tours with Angeline Morrison’s Sorrow Songs Band, with Reg Meuross’s Stolen from God and with The Demon Barbers, and has also enjoyed alongside one-off collaborations with such folk luminaries as John Spiers, John Kirkpatrick and Jim Moray.
Additionally, Cohen has featured extensively on soundtracks for television and theatre – his concertina can be heard on the hit Apple TV series Bad Sisters and he has toured nationally with the children’s theatre show Tales from the Lighthouse.
Cohen’s passion for the English folk tradition has also led to work in research, publishing, and teaching. So far Cohen has been involved in publishing four books of English folk songs, has given several talks on the subject, and has worked with hundreds of students across the globe from school children to pensioners.
Katie Howson
Katie Howson is best known as a driving force in a number of significant English ceilidh bands
including the Old Hat Dance Band and PolkaWorks, playing melodeon and harmonica. She grew up in
the East Anglian tradition, playing alongside legendary musicians such as Oscar Woods, Dolly Curtis
and Billy Bennington, but all along has had a very eclectic wider repertoire stretching from south
west Ireland to the south west states of America and north east England to north east Australia! In
addition to band work, Katie also performs with various musical partners including Roger Digby and
Martin Brinsford. While often thought of as a one-row player she actually plays mainly D/G, with a
side-line on the C one-row. She has tutored at most of the main UK melodeon events and for many
years also ran regular evening classes, although these days she has semi-retired from teaching.
As well as being a musician and educator, Katie is also a researcher, historian and writer on various
aspects of traditional music, song and dance, with several books and websites to her name. Together
with her late husband John Howson, she founded and ran the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust
from 2000 to 2017. In 2010, both were recipients of the EFDSS Gold Badge Award.
Dave Gray
Hailed the smiliest man in folk by Radio 2’s Mark Radcliffe, Dave Gray is an enthusiastic and experienced melodeon player. He is also a highly skilled and committed educator – recently being appointed Artistic Director of Folkworks Adults Summer School at the Glasshouse, Gateshead.
A graduate of the Newcastle University Music Degree, Dave has returned as a tutor from Autumn 2022. In addition to regular private teaching, he continues his work as mentor for Ethno music camps, the international programme for young musicians playing folk, world and traditional music. He has taught for EFDSS, National Youth Folk Ensemble and also the Glasshouse Folkworks summer schools.
A graduate of the Newcastle University Music Degree, Dave has returned as a tutor from Autumn 2022. In addition to regular private teaching, he continues his work as mentor for Ethno music camps, the international programme for young musicians playing folk, world and traditional music. He has taught for EFDSS, National Youth Folk Ensemble and also the Glasshouse Folkworks summer schools.
Vicky Cooper
Vicky is relatively new to all things folk, but has played a variety of instruments in other genres for many years. She has previously taught at North East Playgroup, Derbyshire Playgroup, Whitby Folk Festival and Melodeons in Wensleydale, and is an active morris musician for Silkstone Greens North West Morris. She also co-hosts a Slow and Steady Session in her home town of Sheffield. Vicky primarily plays D/G and G/C melodeons, with a particular soft spot for European tunes, and would like nothing better than to encourage others to take up the melodeon in the hope they love it as much as she does!
Helena Painting
Helena is a keen advocate for adults beginning their musical journey, teaching Absolute Beginner melodeon workshops at melodeon events and folk festivals since 2018. Helena is a regular tutor at Melodeon Playgroup, and has taught at folk festivals including Towersey, Sidmouth, Shrewsbury and Chippenham, working solo and alongside Ed Rennie as part of their Squeezebox from Scratch project. A lover of folk dance and music, Helena runs supportive steady-speed sessions, with a particular focus on English tunes.