Andrew and Margaret have over 20 years experience of performing together and have a reputation for playing with great sensitivity, enhancing the tunes with their own arrangements. From the mid 1970’s they were fortunate to learn many tunes from playing alongside older Northumbrian musicians, especially Joe Hutton.

Their repertoire is extensive and includes tunes from Northumberland, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and North America.
Individually, Andrew and Margaret have both won competitions at traditional music festivals for solo playing and compositions. Together, they have won numerous duet competitions.

In addition to smallpipes and fiddle, they also play Swedish bagpipes, hummelchen, guitar and whistle.
 

Andrew first became interested in traditional music over 25 years ago. It was after hearing recordings of Joe Hutton, George Atkinson and Billy Pigg, and also Anthony Robb playing at Newcastleton Festival in the mid 1970’s that he decided to learn the smallpipes.

He plays a 14 keyed set of pipes in F by Colin Ross, a 14 keyed set in F with an extra contra-bass drone by Richard and Anita Evans (www.evansbagpipes.co.uk), a 17 keyed G set by Andy May, Swedish pipes by Alban Faust and guitar by Nigel Forster.

Margaret grew up in Northumberland among its heritage of tunes, songs and stories. She learned to play the smallpipes with Joe Hutton, and took a degree in music at the University of York, where she studied piano and singing.

She plays fiddles by Jamieson of Edinburgh (1851), Dave Mann (Hexham Violin Shop) and Jay Haide, hummelchen (Renaissance bagpipes) and whistle by Alban Faust.