Biography

Acclaimed singer Bella Hardy, twice nominated in the BBC Folk Awards 2008, has a voice marked as '...mesmerising' and '...faultless'.

Having spent ten years playing some of folk's biggest stages with festival regulars The Pack and Ola, she launched her debut solo album Night Visiting in Autumn 2007 to overwhelming critical support.

Bella has now established herself as one of the finest young folk acts around, singing unaccompanied ballads, or entwining her hypnotic voice with her own fiddle accompaniment to breathtaking effect. Bella is from Edale in Derbyshire's Dark Peak.

As a child Bella was always singing. Edale was the ideal place to nurture this natural ability, with an abundance of communal song. Having played the fiddle a small amount at school, Bella attended a Folkworks Youth Summer School in Durham age 13. Motivated by the number of young people playing folk music, she was inspired to begin working on folk fiddle. She also met many of her great friends and musical companions. Some of these new friends arranged to meet up again, and on New Year's Day a year later The Pack was formed. Initially The Pack was a way for this group of people to get free tickets to festivals. The spirited performances and complex arrangements of the 12 piece band proved a resounding success, and they went on to play many of the scene's greatest stages, including Cambridge Folk Festival main stage in 2003. In 2002, the only Pack album 12 Little Devils was released, with fRoots calling it "... a genuine feel good album. Get yours now!".

At 18, Bella followed her love of stories and moved to York to study English Lit. She spent 3 years singing with trio Ola and in 2004 she entered the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards as a solo artist. She got through the semis as an unaccompanied singer and went into the finals as a fiddle singer. After a few years hibernation, during which she performed in many ceilidh bands, sung unaccompanied wherever possible, worked as an office assistant, and got a Masters in Music from Newcastle University, Bella decided the time had come to make singing her main priority.

Bella launched her debut solo album Night Visiting with a big concert party at The Northern Stage in Newcastle in September 2007. The album was met with great critical acclaim.

"...Bella Hardy is more than a new generation folk revivalist... Her potential is massive. Meanwhile this is an exciting, accomplished debut." Colin Irwin, fRoots