Chris Wood

Event information

Chris Wood is an English songwriter and composer who plays fiddle, viola and guitar, and sings. He is an ardent enthusiast for traditional English dance music (with a background in English church music), including Morris and other rituals and ceremonies, but his repertoire also includes much French folk music and traditional Québécois material. He has worked for many years in a duo with button accordion/melodeon player Andy Cutting: Wood & Cutting are one of the most influential acts on the English folk music scene. Q Magazine gave their "Live at Sidmouth" album four stars and put the duo "at the forefront of the latest wave of British music acts". One of his first recordings was playing bass and percussion on "Jack's Alive" (1980) the first album by the Oysterband (at that time called the Oyster Ceilidh Band).

Wood is also a member of Wood, Wilson & Carthy, with Roger Wilson and Martin Carthy. Wood & Cutting, together with piano accordionist Karen Tweed and guitarist Ian Carr, make up the Two Duos Quartet, who have made one album "Half as happy as we". With John Dipper on fiddle and Robert Harbron on concertinas, he is part of the English Acoustic Collective. This is also the name of an organisation which Wood set up in 1999 to link the many threads of his teaching activities, including summer schools based at Ruskin Mill near Nailsworth, Gloucestershire.