Uiscedwr

First things first: their name is pronounced "ish-ka-dooer" and it means "water" in both Welsh and Irish -- the respective nationalities of founding members Anna Esslemont and Cormac Byrne. They met one strange night in 2002 when both were classical music students at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and aside from forming a romantic attachment, resolved right there and then to form a band together. From County Waterford, Byrne had been playing percussion since he was four in various bands and orchestras, and had been a member of Tommy Hayes' percussion orchestra Spraoi Drummers. Ironically, though, he didn't seriously get into Celtic music until becoming absorbed by the Irish session scene in Manchester, where his brilliance as a bodhran player blossomed. Esslemont had also played in an assortment of disparate bands since first picking up a violin back home in Newtown, Powys, at the age of six, and she was studying violin when she met Byrne in Manchester. Feeling stifled by the rigidity of the classical genre, Esslemont abandoned her violin class to concentrate on the fledgling Uiscedwr, now augmented by guitarist Ben Hellings, who'd worked with Esslemont in one of her previous bands in Wales. They were swiftly catapulted to national attention when Anna's sister secretly entered them for the 2002 BBC Young Folk Awards even though they'd barely played in public at that point. They amazed everyone -- especially themselves -- by winning. This in turn led them to a prestigious appearance at the 2003 Cambridge Folk Festival, and their natural exuberance, stage presence, and tune-playing artistry did the rest. They quickly built a devoted audience and their debut album, Everywhere (a mix of infectious self-written and trad tunes interspersed by dark songs...