Cerys + Emily Portman & Rob Harbron

The Howard Assembly Room is delighted to present a night featuring three of the UK’s finest folk artists.

Through her use of found sounds, electronic processing, and the triple harp (a harp with three parallel rows of strings) composer Cerys Hafana mangles, mutates, and transforms traditional music into something alien. Her fingers unleash a torrent of plucked notes which together create a haunting, stark atmosphere

Emily Portman and Rob Harbron are award-winning performers in their own right. Together the pair, who play banjo, piano, concertina and guitar, delve deep into England’s folk traditions. They emerge with a sound full of vim and vigour, and songs whose striking relevance to the present keep us in touch with our collective roots.

“…[Cerys Hafana is] an adept shapeshifter, entwining tradition with direct and personal interpretations to create music that’s both progressive, profound and inspiring.”
– Alex Gallagher, Folk Radio UK

“English folk comes no more enchanted than Emily Portman’s delicately sung tales”
– The Guardian

“Rob Harbron is a musical hound, showing an endless energy and a fine nose for a melody”
– Songlines