A double bill of melodeon mastery as the Tutors from this weekend’s Melodeon Playgroup take to the stage.
Mel Biggs is a musician, performer and melodeon teacher based in Derbyshire, England. Renowned the world over for her perceptive, patient and mindful manner in teaching groups and individuals, Mel is a leading light in the world of melodeon teaching; both on and off-line. Having been teaching since 2009, Mel has an ever expanding toolkit of techniques at her disposal which she adapts to every new teaching scenario. You can expect a bespoke blend of learning-by-ear, call and response playing, analogies, visualisations and pattern recognition, tune deconstruction and notation in moderation. Mel is a consummate performer, vocalist and accompanist wracking up a wealth of experience in trio Moirai with Jo Freya & Sarah Matthews, playing for various Morris & traditional dance sides, and as an actor-musician in the 2022-23 UK & Canada tour of Fisherman’s Friends: The Musical.
Described in The Living Tradition as ‘captivating, bold and striking’, Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne is at the forefront of his generation of English folk musicians as both a powerful and commanding singer and a masterful player of the Anglo concertina and melodeon.
Additionally, Cohen has featured extensively on soundtracks for television and theatre – his concertina can be heard on the hit Apple TV series Bad Sisters and he has toured nationally with the children’s theatre show Tales from the Lighthouse.
Cohen’s passion for the English folk tradition has also led to work in research, publishing, and teaching. So far Cohen has been involved in publishing four books of English folk songs, has given several talks on the subject, and has worked with hundreds of students across the globe from school children to pensioners.
