 |  | | | | | BEST OF THE FEST
Mike Harding and Nick Barraclough have looked through the line up and bring you their top five unmissable acts at this year's festival.
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| | | | | | | |  | | CHRISTY MOORE
The former lead vocalist and chief songwriter of Planxty and Moving Hearts, Christy is considered to be one of contemporary Irish music's best singer-songwriters. Elements of rock and popular music added to his well-crafted, tradition-based tunes have updated the musical traditions of Ireland and he has been a major inspiration to many modern Irish artists. He received the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.
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| | | | |  | | KATHRYN TICKELL BAND
This superb Northumbrian piper and fiddler has played a key role in revitalising Northumbrian music while developing into an outstanding composer. A great collaborator and project leader, Kathryn fronts her own band, lectures part-time on the Folk and Traditional Music degree course at Newcastle University and is 2005's Musician of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
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| | | | |  | | ALTAN
Fronted by Donegal-born fiddler and vocalist Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh, Altan has grown into one of the top traditional bands in Ireland. Begun in 1987 initially as a duo between Ni Mhaonaigh and Belfast-born flute player Frankie Kennedy, the award-winning (including Best Group at 2003's BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards) band has survived line-up changes and the sad death of Kennedy in 1984. Now at the top of their game, they continue to take Gaelic music to international stages.
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| | | | |  | | KARINE POLWART
Triple-award-winner at this year's BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Karine is a former member of Scots-Irish quintet Malinky and a one-time member of Battlefield Band and duo MacAlias. Degrees in philosophy and a background dealing with the most vulnerable in society inform her own strong lyrical output and her contemporary songwriting - on which she is currently concentrating while fronting her own band - is generating the highest accolades.
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| | | | |  | | BELLOWHEAD
This 10-piece big band fronted by 2004 Folk Awards Best Duo John Spiers and Jon Boden brings huge energy and originality to English dance music and song. Fiddles, melodeon, cello, oboe, bouzouki, percussion and brass produce a wall of infectiously danceable sound which won the ensemble this year's Best Live Act at the BBC Folk Awards.
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