Jackie Oates is a singer and fiddle player hailing from Staffordshire and now living in Oxford. Her unique treatment of English ballads and songs, and pure, haunting singing style has attracted increasing attention. Since appearing as a finalist in the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards 2003, she has performed extensively at festivals and folk clubs across the country, in a solo capacity and with a number of bands. Her second album The Violet Hour was one of the Top 10 on the Mojo folk album of the year chart in 2008, followed by Hyperboreans reaching number five in the chart the following year. Also in 2009 Jackie won two BBC Folk Awards – The Horizon Award for best new comer, and the Best Traditional Track Award. She is currently singing with her own band, and touring as a member of The Imagined Village alongside Eliza Carthy.

Rising Voices Community Choir is a community choir in the truest sense of the word.The choir was founded from scratch by Folk Weekend director Cat Kelly, and over the years Rising Voices has gone from strength to strength, flourishing in to a strong group of singers with a real sense of community and cohesion. Rising Voices performs without accompaniment; the repertoire is largely based in roots and traditional music, mostly from England but occasionally from further afield, even venturing in to pop from time to time.

More information and tickets at www.folk-arts-oxford.co.uk/pre-events