CONGRATULATIONS went to Truro singer-composer Angeline Morrison, who is among 10 artists to receive an award worth £75,000 from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

The charity was founded in 2001 to enable everyone, especially young people, to realise their full potential and enjoy fulfilling and creative lives regardless of income.

Angeline attended an awards ceremony at the charity’s London HQ last night [Thursday, November 13]. “I honestly can’t believe it,” she said.

“It’s so overwhelming, in an beautiful way. I have to really stop and pinch myself to believe it’s happening. I’m like a child who has been given an amazing Christmas gift.

“It can be hard to make beautiful things if you’re worried about day-to-day survival. All my life, it’s been normal to have to make money on the side; now I can take a break from that and focus on my creative work. It’s a privilege.

“Then there’s the validation of my work. That’s worth its weight in gold. It makes me tearful just to think about it.”

The post-pandemic years have been busy for Angeline. Her 2022 album, The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of Black British Experience, was produced by folk titan Eliza Carthy and tells the stories of people from the African diaspora and their place in the British Isles. Songs include ‘Unknown African Boy (d.1830)’, about an enslaved eight-year-old child whose body was washed up on the Isles of Scilly following the wreck of the slave ship Hope.

Hailed as The Guardian’s Folk Album of the Year, The Sorrow Songs led to Angeline’s TV debut on Later With Jools Holland, a solo set on Glastonbury’s acoustic stage in 2023, and a dedicated BBC Prom earlier this year.

“I’m not used to this level of exposure and these wonderful opportunities,” she said. “As a musician, I’d always dreamed of things like appearing on Jools Holland or at Glastonbury. This is now, and I will never stop being grateful for that and excited about it.”

In October, Angeline curated the first ever Black British Folk Takeover for the English Folk Dance and Song Society at its base in Cecil Sharp House, London. With Jon Bickley and Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, she recorded the album Grace Will Lead Me Home, marking the 250th anniversary of the writing of Amazing Grace and the 300th birthday of its writer John Newton – the tour recently checked in at Devoran.

And on Friday, November 21, she appears at the Old Bakery Studios in Truro with her solo show, accompanying herself on autoharp, dulcimer and mbira or singing a capella. Angeline will also be joined by The Wad, an all-female Morris team from Falmouth.

“It’s always lovely to come home,” she said. “These are my favourite performances. It will be an intimate, slow gig, featuring material from Sorrow Songs, some of my new compositions not recorded yet, and a selection of my funny little acoustic instruments.”

Tickets are available at www.eventbrite.co.uk.

A longer version of this interview can be read at www.voicenewspapers.co.uk