With a career spanning  25 years in music, Kate Rusby is one of the finest interpreters of traditional folk songs and one of our most emotive original songwriters – melding old and new so you can barely see the join. A Mercury Prize nominee, Folk Singer of the Year, Best Live Act, Best Album and Best Original Song winner at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

Forever proud to call herself folk singer, Kate Rusby’s beautiful, expressive vocals never fail to connect the emotional heart of a song to that of her audience.  Famously down to earth, for over twenty years Kate’s engaging personality and sharp Yorkshire wit have further endeared her to concert goers everywhere.

And it is in her special Christmas concerts that all these elements combine to exquisite effect. See the video on Kate’s YouTube explaining the importance of Yorkshire Carols below!

After fifteen years of enchanting audiences up and down the land, Kate’s Christmas tour – so wondrously captured on her 2013 Live At Christmas concert DVD – has for many, become as much a part of the festivities as Christmas pudding itself! Warm and inviting, spicy and sparkly she and her marvellous band – joined as ever by a sublime brass quintet – embody the sounds and joyous spirit of the best Christmases ever!

Kate’s band of merry musicians this December will comprise of:
Damien O’Kane on guitar, tenor guitar and banjo
Aaron Jones on bouzouki
Nick Cooke on diatonic accordion
Duncan Lyall on double bass
Kate will also be joined on stage by her fabulous brass quintet.

The key word here is, of course, ‘joy’. For, with her Christmas concerts, Kate is embracing and sharing a local South Yorkshire tradition of which she’s been a part ever since she was a child. For over two hundred years from late November to New Year’s Day on Sunday lunchtimes the good folk of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire have flocked to their local public houses to sing their own, unique variations of familiar carols that, as Kate says, ‘were kicked out of churches during the Victorian era for being too happy!’ (And we might add too exuberant!)

This festive tour will feature tracks from Kate’s forthcoming fourth Christmas album, celebrating this marvellous Yorkshire-inspired tradition. Also, Kate and co will be performing songs and carols from all four Christmas releases and there might be a favourite or two from her back catalogue in recognition of 25 years of magnificent music making. 

Hugely spirited but undoubtedly family affairs, Kate’s concerts celebrate what makes Christmas so special and so much fun as she and her fellow musicians perform fabulous songs brimful of the goodwill and spirituality of the season and in doing so put smiles on faces and joy in our hearts.