Andy Cutting and Gudrun Walther

Gudrun Walther and Andy Cutting, two exceptional musicians are touring together. In their home countries, both are among the best-known musicians in their genre and have received multiple awards, including the BBC Folk Award and the Irish Music Award.

Their interplay is characterized by empathy and spontaneity. With diatonic accordion, violin, and vocals, they are minimalist in their line-up, yet achieve maximum intensity.

They dispense with the security of fixed arrangements and rehearsed parts. Everything is direct, live, spontaneous, and in the moment. Their music is like a conversation, an exchange of thoughts and feelings. To interact so freely with one another, the musicians must have absolute mastery of their instruments. Yet virtuosity itself is never the focus; it is more like a magical immersion into the wonderland of sounds, with the musicians leading the way with sleepwalking certainty, inviting the audience to join them.

About Andy Cutting

Andy Cutting, a three-time BBC Folk Awards Musician of the year, is a compelling solo performer and works with Leveret, Blowzabella, Topette!, Anne Niepold, and Roger Daltrey. He’s a musician’s musician and one of the folk scene’s most wanted, playing with Kate Rusby, John McCusker, June Tabor and Martin Simpson to name but a few. There is also a growing demand for him to play outside this genre (having recorded with Sting, John Illsley (Dire Straits) and most recently being asked to join The Who for an acoustic concert in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. His style of playing is unique and has audibly influenced more than one generation of box players, which also makes him a popular tutor for workshops and master classes worldwide. He has been teaching the National Youth Folk Ensemble on a regular basis since 2015, He’s also an esteemed composer and many of his tunes are considered contemporary classics on the folk scene.

About Gudrun Walther

Gudrun Walther is one of Germany’s most sought-after and well-respected trad musicians. With various projects, most of all her multi-national band, CARA, she’s touring within Europe, the US and Australia. Together with Juergen Treyz, duo partner and co-founder of German trad band, Deitsch, she’s counted amongst the figureheads of the German folk revival. She won numerous awards with her music and recordings (German Folk Award, German Record Critics Award, Irish Music Award (twice), Freiburger Leiter, Kaarster Stern), guested on many genre crossing albums, performed as a soloist with orchestras and worked as producer and co-producer in the recording studio. In 2016 she was asked to guest with world-renowned Irish band, Téada, filling in for Sligo fiddle master Oisín MacDiarmada. In December 2020, star violinist Daniel Hope invited her along with Juergen Treyz to play a concert in his living room in Berlin, which was broadcast on ARTEconcert throughout Europe.