Alistair Anderson

As a touring soloist, Alistair Anderson is internationally acknowledged as the master of the English Concertina and a fine exponent of the Northumbrian Pipes. He delights audiences with traditional music from Northumberland and beyond, as well as his own music, which has grown out of his love of these traditions.

He founded Folkworks, an organisation that helped to change the face of folk music, with large numbers of young people discovering traditional music, song and dance through their summer schools, workshops and education projects. Folkworks became one of the two founding partners of The Sage Gateshead and Anderson continued as its Artistic Director until 2008. Working with the Music Department of Newcastle University, Anderson developed England’s first degree course in folk and traditional music launched in Sept 2001.

He has collaborated with jazz musicians and wrote for a mixed ensemble of Northumbrian and Moravian musicians and spent October 2010 touring South Africa with traditional Xhosa musicians, singers and dancers. The success of his varied performance and composing work grows out of his deep understanding of traditional music balanced with an adventurous sense of its constantly changing nature and creative potential.