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Karine Polwart

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  • Karine Polwart

    • Presented by Folk in the Barn

    2025 marks 25 years since KARINE POLWART embraced a full-time career as a Scottish folk singer, and 20 years since she scooped three BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards following her debut solo album Faultlines.

    Since then, she’s become a multi-award-winning songwriter, theatre maker, broadcaster and storyteller whose work evokes a richness of place, hidden histories, scientific enquiry and folklore. Trees and rocks speak. Birds flit in and out of vision. And the stars know everything. She conjures the beauty and magic, the sorrow and complexity of the world out of the corner of her eye, with lyricism and tenderness.

    Her many collaborative projects encompass: Looking for the Thread, a 2025 collaborative album with Grammy Award winning US artist, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and renowned Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis; Still As Your Sleeping, a duo with pianist Dave Milligan; Spell Songs, a multi-artist response to environmental loss; and theatre shows, including her forthcoming Windblown – a hymn to plants, gardeners and grieving – and Wind Resistance, her peatbog-inspired theatre show for The Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh.

    Karine’s ‘feather & ether’ tour is a rare chance to enjoy her in intimate, conversational solo performance. Expect a clutch of new songs and wonder tales, and an evening of curiosity and compassion.

    Ever since her wonderful, sold out, first visit to Folk in the Barn in 2008, I have tried to bring Karine back to Canterbury. It’s a thrill to have finally achieved this return.

    Long established as a glorious singer, enquiring songwriter and enlightened mind MOJO ★★★★
    A spellbinding storyteller … pays attention to the stuff that our society doesn’t usually notice. Irish Times ★★★★★
    One of the finest singer-songwriters in Britain The Guardian ★★★★★

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    Karine Polwart

    Mon 28 April

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    ART31

    ART31 takes its name from Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, which states that ‘Children have the right to relax and play, and to join in a wide range of cultural, artistic and other recreational activities’.

    ART31 is a vision created with, by, and for young people in Kent, championing the belief that all children and young people have an entitlement to access high quality arts and culture, to empower them to achieve their creative potential, and to genuinely engage young people as equal partners in any decision making that affects them.

    The ART31 Youth Board is made up of young people from across Kent aged 13-25 who steer its governance, and influence policy and practice across the county and beyond, challenging the creative sector to examine existing ways of working and integrate young people into the core of their practice.

    Our projects with young people

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    ART31 Generate

    Youth Theatre

    Fantastic and fun sessions for ages 13-18 years, encouraging creativity and theatre-making skills.

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    SCREEN31

    Screen31 is a group for young people aged 15-25 interested in developing their film-making skills.
    TECH31

    TECH31

    TECH31 provides free practical training in technical theatre for ages 13 - 25
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    National Theatre Connections – Gulbenkian Young Company

    NT Connections is the National Theatre’s nationwide youth theatre festival. Each year it offers a unique opportunity for youth theatres and school theatre groups to stage new plays written for young people by some of theatre’s most exciting playwrights, and to perform in leading theatres across the UK.
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    Gulbenkian Uncovered

    Are you enthusiastic, committed and creative? Gulbenkian Uncovered gives University of Kent students the chance to programme films and run events.

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    Square Pegs Arts

    Square Pegs Arts are an award winning charity who provide drama groups, music projects and other accessible Arts opportunities for children and young adults who have learning disabilities and autism, and produce original, inspiring, challenging Theatre. Difference is celebrated and everyone is supported to shine in their own way.
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    KRAN Fam

    KRAN Fam is a drama group in partnership with Kent Refugee Action Network for young refugees and asylum-seekers.

    Accessible Film Club

    Relaxed Screenings

    Monthly film screenings that are open to all, especially those with autism and learning disabilities.

    Young People - Screen31 ARTY31

    ARTY31

    Gulbenkian’s ARTY31 group is for young people aged 8-12 with a wide variety of arts interests.

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