GreenMatthews

Chris Green and Sophie Matthews are modern-day balladeers, specialising in telling stories through song.

Using a beguiling blend of ancient instruments such as cittern, crumhorn, English border bagpipes and shawm as well as modern folk instruments such as mandocello, flute and piano accordion, GreenMatthews breathe new life into material from hundreds of years ago, making it fresh, relevant and accessible for a modern audience.

Chris and Sophie have built an enviable reputation for combining incisive wit and humour with a genuine love of and respect for music from the past. Taking their cue from ancient troubadour tradition, they are 21st-century wandering players – touring their self-created shows extensively throughout the UK and Europe. Although their music and tales are rooted in history, the performance is entirely of the 21st century, immediate and accessible to modern audiences.

CHRIS GREEN

Born into a musical family in Coventry, Chris began playing guitar at the age of eight and piano from the age of nine, and plays most things with fretted strings or keys. Largely self-taught, he’s worked in a variety of musical genres including folk, theatre and early music. He’s a regular musician at Shakespeare’s Globe and was also one of the musicians on BBC’s Poldark, appearing in series 1 and 2. He also writes and composes, having adapted The Wind in the Willows (2017) for GreenMatthews as well as A Christmas Carol: In Concert (2018). He has released two Switched-On Playford albums, which fuse 17th-century dance music with electronica, using a blend of early instruments, synths and loops. In a similar vein, he’s also written, recorded and toured new live scores for the silent films Nosferatu (1922) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920).

SOPHIE MATTHEWS

Sophie began playing flute at the age of ten but is now more well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes and has become one of the foremost players of the instrument in the UK. She also plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife, crumhorn and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the baroque musette, an 18th century French bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian smallpipes. Sophie is also recognised as a superb interpreter of narrative song with a clear, pure and unaffected soprano voice. When not touring with GreenMatthews, Sophie is an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society, lecturing primarily on Music in Art. Sophie also makes instruments (she made her own baroque oboe) and works with respected luthier Tony Millyard on his flutes. Sophie is self-taught on all of her instruments.