Emma and the Professor

Music:

Member Since: 4/9/2006
Band Members: Emma Heath - Vocals and Guitar.
Emma has always had a love of singing and performing and her first introduction to folk music was through Benji Kirkpatrick and his band, 'The Hedgerows.’ They featured on the first Evolving Tradition album. After studying a Music Theatre course in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and working with great guitarist Ewan Hunter (The Rosy Hours), she headed back to Shropshire with a guitar under her arm. As a duo Emma & Mark have performed at some fantastic festivals and venues, travelled abroad and worked with some great people. They have supported the likes of Show of Hands, Vin Garbutt, Flook, Hazel O'Connor, John Renborn and Jacquee McShee, Back of The Moon and The Oyster Band, just to mention a few. Emma has sung live with Nizlopi at Warwick Folk Festival and has just begun working with international story teller, Cat Weatherill.
Mark Davies - Bodhran. Cajon and Udu.
In 2001, Mark began his music career at the tender age of 32. One could say he took to the bodhran like a duck to water. His amazing ability to play with such freedom and energy really pulls in his audience and takes them on a journey. Quoted as “Jimi Hendrix on a bodhran” could not be closer to the truth and the tribal rhythms that ooze from Mark are spellbinding. “I have never heard so many sounds coming out of one little drum,” and “I never knew you could do that with a bodhran,” are just a few comments to mention. Some of Mark's finest moments have been playing on The Grand Turk in Whitby, playing with Dirty Ray of The Immaculate Fools and recording for Miles Hunt from The Wonder Stuff! Mark features on Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls new album "Catching more than we miss." on the track "Plans in the sky". Mark plays a Diarmaid O'Kane Bodhran.

Jonathan Draper - Cello.
Jonathan Draper's cello career began with him being awarded a music scholarship and winning the ABRSM Gold Bursary and the Margurite Swann Memorial Prize for the highest Grade 8 cello result in the country. He then went on to attend masterclasses with Alexander Baillie before being accepted at the University of Edinburgh, and then progressed to Trinity College of Music in London to focus on his playing. The time spent at Trinity gave him a range of orchestral experience, playing in chamber, symphony and string orchestras as well as playing solo cello. Since then he has expanded his cello playing to embrace a range of global styles. In this context he blends folk styles with Eastern influences gained from experience playing Indian Classical Music. Jonathan also fronts a jazz band as a vocalist and pianist called Just 4 Jazz and gigs regularly both as a soloist, in a duo and as part of various other configurations.
Brian Stone - Fiddle.
Brian Stone first sprang to the attention of the folk music scene in the 1970s, playing manic fiddle with pioneering folk rock band Junction 24, which fused jazz, rock and folk influences and featured the early use of electric violins and synthesizers. His fiddling career has encompassed work in television, radio and theatre, and he has toured across Europe, America, the Middle East and China, appearing at many top UK folk festivals, both as performer and teacher. As well as still playing with Junction 24, he fronted the high-energy contraceilidh band, Fiddlin’ Around, for ten years. You can also catch him in 2009 with new band Fiddlegang, for example at Cecil Sharp House in London and at the Intervarsity Folk Dance Festival at Exeter University.
Izzy MacLachlan - Multi-Instrumentalist.
Izzy is an experienced Highland piper with a repertoire of traditional bagpipe music. He trained at the College of Piping in Glasgow and has performed at numerous weddings, funerals, New Year parties and Burns’ Nights. Well known on the Shropshire and borders folk music circuit he also plays an array of other instruments including drums and percussion, bodhran, piano, guitar, flute and whistles, and is a well accomplished computer-based music composer and arranger! Originally from the inner Hebridean islands on the west coast of Scotland and now settled on the outskirts of Shrewsbury with his Shropshire born wife and their two children, he works as a lecturer in music and sound production at a University in Birmingham.

Influences: Sandy Denny, Robert Plant (Led Zep), Afro Celts...there are so many to list. Arabic music, Folk, Rock and Roots. Anything that jangles the chords in our head and gets the heart pumping!

Sounds Like: Emma & The Professor
Type of Label: Unsigned