THERE is a weekend of great music at The Haymarket soon, with Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham performing on Saturday, 24 March.

Having toured together since 1986, Aly and Phil charm audiences with their stunning music and on-stage charisma. Witty and humorous banter sits alongside tunes that tug the heartstrings, and joyous reels and melodies have feet tapping along at their ever popular concerts.

The pair have recorded many highly acclaimed albums in their thirty years together including two ‘Best of’ collections, and won numerous awards including Best Duo at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

Aly is rightly regarded as Scotland’s supreme fiddler. As a founder member of Boys of the Lough, he has toured extensively in America, Europe and the UK. In 2013, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. He launched the popular BBC TV series Transatlantic Sessions in which he and Phil appear, and has featured on recordings by the likes of Eddi Reader and Richard Thompson.

Phil Cunningham is a world-famous accordion player and composer and was nominated in 1996 by The Scotsman as one of ‘Scotland’s most influential people’. In recent years, his work-load has included many commissions for television and film, and an increasing amount of work as musical director. In 2002, he received an MBE for his contribution to Scottish music. He has produced and recorded with top musicians including James Taylor, Rosanne Cash, Midge Ure and Mark Knopfler.

Blowzabella perform on Sunday, 25 March, celebrating 40 years of their inimitable, drone-based wall-of-sound, having played everywhere from the main stage at Glastonbury Festival to the outer reaches of Brazil.

With a new album Two Score, a new book of tunes More Scores, the band play with a fabulous sense of melody, rhythmic expertise and sheer feeling. They compose their own music which is influenced by English and European traditional folk music and song.

Many of their tunes are ‘standards’ in the modern folk repertoire and are played all over the world. Bands across Europe who experiment with folk music often cite Blowzabella as a major influence. Much loved and respected, there is no one else quite like them.

They add: “We’ve made a lot of albums, and are our own worst critics, and we’re confident that this is our best work for a long while. We keep up our reputation for writing memorable tunes you can whistle, put our own stamp on some songs from the English folk tradition and meld that into our patented Blowzabella-wall-of-sound”.

Blowzabella are Andy Cutting, Jo Freya, Paul James, Gregory Jolivet, David Shepherd, Barn Stradling and Jon Swayne.

For more information or for tickets, visit anvilarts.org.uk or call the Anvil Arts box office on 01256 844244.