Early life Kathryn Tickell was born in
Walsall, to parents who originated from
Northumberland and who moved back there from Staffordshire with the family when Kathryn was seven. Her paternal grandfather played accordion, fiddle, and organ. Her father, Mike Tickell, sings and her mother played the
concertina. Her first instrument was piano when she was six. A year later, she picked up a set of
Northumbrian smallpipes brought home by her father, who intended them for someone else. Frustrated by fiddle and piano, she learned that the pipes rewarded her effort. She was inspired by older musicians such as
Willy Taylor,
Will Atkinson,
Joe Hutton, and
Billy Pigg.
Performing and recording At thirteen, she had gained a reputation from performing in festivals and winning pipe contests. When she was seventeen, she released her first album,
On Kielder Side (Saydisc, 1984), which she recorded at her parents' house. During the same year, she was named Official Piper to the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, an office that had been vacant for 13 years, since George Atkinson's appointment for a single year in 1971. She recorded with the
Penguin Cafe Orchestra, led by
Simon Jeffes. She met Jeffes while she was in her teens, and he wrote the song "Organum" for her. Over a decade after Jeffes's death, she played with
Penguin Cafe, run by his son,
Arthur. She formed Kathryn Tickell and the Side, with Ruth Wall on Celtic harp, Louisa Tuck on cello, and Amy Thatcher on accordion. The group plays a mixture of traditional and classical music. They released an eponymous album in 2014. In 2018 Tickell established a new band, Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, with whom she released the album
Hollowbone in 2019. This project signals a different approach, with new material. There is a semi-imaginary incursion into the prehistory of Northumbrian music in the track "Nemesis" based on Roman-era texts and a melody by Emperor
Hadrian’s court musician
Mesomedes. There is a foray into a world of ancestral shamanism in "O-u-t Spells Out". The album was greeted with critical acclaim, with four-star reviews in
The Observer and the
Financial Times, as were the band's various national tours in its first two years of existence.
Other projects In 1987, the early part of her career was chronicled in
The Long Tradition, a TV documentary. ''Kathryn Tickell's Northumbria'', another documentary, appeared in 2006. In 1997, Tickell founded the Young Musicians Fund of the Tyne and Wear Foundation to provide money to young people in northeastern England who wanted to learn music. She founded the Festival of the North East and from 2009 to 2013 was the artistic director of
Folkworks. ==Awards and honours==