Frank Birtwistle

Fatea Instrumentalist of the Year 2020 Nominee.

Originally from Lancashire, Frank Birtwistle has lived in Sheffield since the early 1990s and has played the guitar on and off since the age of 12. Over the years, a love of fingerstyle guitar ranging from Classical, Flamenco and Folk plus a general love of great songwriting from artists such as Kate Bush, Clannad and Nick Drake to name but a few, has slowly shaped his own sound.

After a rather longer than planned 10+ year hiatus, the playing/writing started all over again after hearing Lucy Rose’s “Shiver” for the first time. Since then a large collection of 100+ new compositions and song ideas have emerged - some of which have been compiled onto eps and are being performed live and others are being worked on in partnership with Sally Doherty as a duo act called Summerisle.

Inspired by life, love and nature, the atmospheric acoustic fingerstyle based music has a very pastoral and poetic feel and sits somewhere between Folk and Classical.

So far, several releases have featured on BBC Radio 6 and have been voted onto Tom Robinson's Fresh Faves lists including "Winter Hill" and "The Prize". The vast majority of the music released so far has been curated into the British Library Sound Archive where it will hopefully live for many generations to come and also features on the Superior Songs roster.

https://frankbirtwistle.bandcamp.com/
https://superiorsongs.com/Frank-Birtwistle
https://www.facebook.com/summerisleduo