Kathryn Tickell: four decades of carrying Northumbrian pipes to the world

Few musicians are as closely tied to a landscape as Kathryn Tickell is to Northumberland. Described on her own website as "the foremost exponent of the Northumbrian pipes", she has spent more than four decades taking the region's distinctive small pipes from village halls to concert stages around the world.

Born in 1967 to parents from Northumberland, she moved back to the county with her family as a child. Her first album, On Kielder Side, came out in 1984 when she was sixteen, and that same year she became official piper to the Lord Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne. She turned professional in 1986 and founded The Kathryn Tickell Band in 1990.

Her collaborators have included Sting, Jacob Collier, The Chieftains and The Penguin Café Orchestra, and she is a regular presenter of BBC Radio 3's Music Planet. Honours have followed: Musician of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2004 and 2013, the Queen's Medal for Music in 2009, and an OBE for services to folk music in 2015, the same year she became a Deputy Lieutenant for Northumberland.

In 2018 she formed Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening. Their debut album Hollowbone drew four-star reviews, and Cloud Horizons followed in 2023. The band also opened Sunderland's new Fire Station auditorium in December 2021.

In 2024 she released Return to Kielderside, marking 40 years since that first album, and in 2026 she toured the world as part of Sting's musical The Last Ship. That production also brought her together with Mick McAuley, and the pair have announced a joint tour for April 2027 combining tunes from their earliest influences with new music.

Just as important is the work she does for the next generation. She founded Folkestra in 2002 for young musicians aged 14 to 19, and her Young Musicians Fund, which helps young people in the North East with tuition fees and instruments, has raised over £100,000.

Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening have dates coming up at Leeds Howard Assembly Room on 2 November, The Stables on 3 November and The Fire Station in Sunderland on 4 November 2026.

Tour dates, recordings and news are on Kathryn Tickell's website.