Folk Album of the Year Award Announces Distinguished Jury
In its second year, The Folk Album of the Year Award celebrates the most artistically acclaimed albums released in Britain and Ireland. Nominees will be chosen by a distinguished panel of musicians, writers and media professionals, chaired by celebrated English folk singer-songwriter and Executive Producer of BBC Radio 2’s ‘The Folk Show’ and ‘21st Century Folk’, Kellie While.
The high-profile jury, which will shortlist the albums to be revealed in November, includes:
Alexandria Carr (KOKO London)
Amy-Jane Beer (Author)
Ben Edge (Visual Artist)
Dónall Mac Ruairí (Musician / broadcaster)
Georgia Ruth (BBC Cymru and musician)
Jenna Reid (Musician)
Jo Frost (Journalist)
Jude Rogers (The Guardian)
Katch Holmes (Knockengorroch Festival)
Lynette Fay (broadcaster / producer)
Mark Radcliffe (BBC Radio 2)
Philip Selway (Radiohead)
Jury advisor: Joe Boyd (Record Producer / Author)
The Award will spotlight eight shortlisted albums released in 2026, with the overall winner unveiled at an inaugural ceremony featuring live performances from nominated artists. The livestreamed event will take place at Rochdale Town Hall on Tuesday 9 February 2027.
The Folk Album of the Year Award aims to showcase the breadth and diversity of folk music across Britain and Ireland celebrating originality, artistic quality and cultural impact, regardless of commercial profile.
Submissions are now open to artists and their representatives, including labels and publishers, and will close at 23:59 on Friday 30 October 2026. Submit your album here.
The Award has been created by music charity Sound Roots and the award-winning podcast Folk on Foot, hosted by broadcaster Matthew Bannister. Each nominated album will be spotlighted in its own album profile show on Folk on Foot as part of a special eight-part series in early January 2027.
The Award also complements the Sound Roots-commissioned Official Folk Albums Chart, which has run monthly in collaboration with the Official Charts Company since 2020 and spotlights around 120 new folk releases each year.
Ireland’s Barry Kerr won the 2025 Folk Album of the Year Award for his seventh album, Curlew’s Cry. The nine nominated albums represented a breadth of folk music styles, including four debut albums by artists from throughout Britain and Ireland:
Teeth of Time by Joshua Burnside
Teleology by Peggy Seeger
All Smiles Tonight by Poor Creature
Curlew’s Cry by Barry Kerr (2025 Folk Album of the Year)
Auchies Spikkin’ Auchie by Grace Stewart-Skinner
Tomorrow Held by Spafford Campbell
Shimli by Cynefin
Varipasi by Edith WeUtonga
Turnstone by Gigspanner Big Band
The Folk Album of the Year Award sits within Sound Roots’ wider programme of events, including Manchester Folk Festival and English Folk Expo (EFEx) - England’s national showcase for English folk, roots and acoustic music. Sound Roots also delivers a range of networking, education and commercially focused initiatives designed to support, celebrate and connect the UK’s grassroots folk community.
The Award is supported by Rochdale Development Agency and forms a key part of Rochdale’s cultural development strategy, including music.
Meet The Jury
Kellie While (Chair)
Kellie While is Chair of the Sound Roots Board and Jury Chair. The BBC/Pomona Audio radio producer’s production credits include the BBC Radio 2 Folk Show, 21st Century Folk and the Radio 2 Folk Awards, as well as myriad documentaries and specials for Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 4, BBC World Service, Radio 5 Live, 6 Music and Sky Arts. As a teenager, she became the youngest lead singer of The Albion Band and went on to front Anglo-African group e2K. She continues to perform with her Mum, Chris While, a project close to her heart, and each December she takes to the road with The Albion Christmas Band alongside Ashley Hutchings, Simon Nicol and Simon Care.
Jude Rogers
Jude Rogers is an arts journalist and broadcaster, and the Guardian's folk music critic. Her book, The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives, was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year and the Penderyn Music Prize. She is also a documentary maker, writer and presenter for BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Wales.
Philip Selway
Philip Selway is a member of the band Radiohead. He is a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter who has released four solo albums and has composed soundtracks for film, dance and radio. He has also played drums with Neil Finn, Lanterns on the Lake, James Yorkston and the Secondhand Orchestra, The Unthanks, Martin Simpson, Kate Rusby, John McCusker and Kris Drever.
Mark Radcliffe
Mark Radcliffe has worked in radio for well over forty years, having started out at Manchester’s Piccadilly station in 1979. He has gone on to work for BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, Radio 4 Extra, Radio 5, Radio 5 Live, 6 Music and the World Service. He currently presents the Radio 2 Folk Show and weekend breakfast on 6 Music with Stuart Maconie.
Katch Holmes
Katch Holmes is a founder of the roots music festival Knockengorroch in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. She has programmed and developed this established event since its inception. She represents progressive trad/folk and crossover music acts through her live agency, Off Site Productions. A qualified Relational Dynamics business coach, she has coached artists, commissioned new music, promoted gigs and produced international residencies.
Jenna Reid
Jenna is a fiddler who was born and bred in Quarff, Shetland. Her fiddling began at a young age alongside her sister and brother, under the watchful eye of the late Willie Hunter. Jenna’s recently released fifth solo album, Working Hands, is a stunning collection of her compositions.
Georgia Ruth
Georgia Ruth is a musician and broadcaster from Aberystwyth, Wales. Using folk influences to create a truly unique sound, her debut album, Week of Pines, won the Welsh Music Prize in 2013 and was nominated for two BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. She presents a weekly music show on BBC Radio Cymru, showcasing the best contemporary music from Wales and beyond.
Jo Frost
Jo Frost has more than 30 years’ experience in the music industry as a journalist, curator and consultant. An internationally respected authority on music from around the world, she spent almost two decades as editor of Songlines and was instrumental in establishing the magazine’s global reputation. Now freelance, she works with a variety of publications and organisations, including Sound Roots, where she is a trustee.
Lynette Fay
Lynette Fay is a broadcaster and producer, well known through her work with BBC Radio Ulster, where she hosted Blas Ceoil and Folk Club. She presented the ground-breaking Fleadh TV on TG4, co-hosted Blas Ceoil and has made many TV music documentaries. She has been on judging panels for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and the RTÉ Folk Awards.
Alex Carr
Alex Carr is Head of Music at London’s KOKO. She has previously worked as the Contemporary Music Programmer for the Southbank Centre in London, where she worked across bespoke festivals like Meltdown, ESEA Encounters, South Asian Sounds and the Southbank X Montreux Jazz Festival Residency. She is also a freelance radio broadcaster and programmer for the PAC venue at Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Alex is a passionate advocate for inclusivity within the music industry.
Ben Edge
Ben Edge (b. 1985, Croydon) is a British contemporary artist based in North London whose work explores why human beings create myths, rituals and folklore, and what these traditions reveal about our relationship with nature, one another and modern life. Rather than treating folklore as a relic of the past, Edge understands it as one of humanity’s oldest ways of making sense of the world. Looking backwards to move forwards, his paintings ask how the stories we tell shape the world we create.
Amy-Jane Beer
Amy-Jane Beer is a British nature writer, naturalist and campaigner. Her 2022 book, The Flow: Rivers, Water and Wildness, won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. She is also co-director of Right to Roam.
Dónall Mac Ruairí
Dónall is a well-known presenter on Raidió na Gaeltachta and RTÉ, and a member of the renowned Clann Mhic Ruairí group alongside his brother Tony, Seán and Aodh, and his niece Megan. He is also a member of the groups Blunderbrau and Innisfáil.
Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd is a record and film producer. Born in Boston in 1942, he graduated from Harvard in 1964. After university, he worked as a production and tour manager for George Wein in Europe, where he travelled with Muddy Waters, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz and others, and at Newport, where he supervised Bob Dylan’s electric debut. In 1966, he opened UFO, London’s psychedelic ballroom.
His first record production was four tracks by “Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse” for Elektra in 1966. He went on to produce Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard & Linda Thompson, Maria Muldaur, Toots and the Maytals, R.E.M., Kate & Anna McGarrigle, 10,000 Maniacs, Billy Bragg, Cubanismo, Taj Mahal and many others.
