THE hugely popular Dorset folk duo Ninebarrow have a gig with Dorchester Arts at Thomas Hardye School theatre, on Saturday 14th November. The show focuses on their recent studio album, The Hour of the Blackbird, a collection of beautiful original songs.

Ninebarrow – Jon Whitley and Jay La Bouchardiere – consistently delight audiences across the country with their innovative and captivating take on the folk tradition. Described by Mark Radcliffe as sounding “like two halves of one voice” and by Mercury Music Prize nominee Kate Rusby as “absolutely amazing”, Jon and Jay combine vocal harmonies and melodies, with their songs that are inspired and rooted in the landscape and history of the British Isles. They also take a wide-range of traditional folk songs and rework them in their own, distinctive way.

Jon and Jay relinquished their respective full-time jobs as a teacher and GP back in 2016 and took a leap of faith into the music business. In 2017, they were nominated for a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award, one of the highest accolades in the world of folk music and recognition for their harmonies, poetic lyricism and magical instrumentation.

Over the course of 12 years and six studio albums, the duo, named after Nine Barrow Down in the Purbecks, have earned themselves a reputation for their engaging and empathetic song writing, their imaginative reworkings of traditional songs, their deft musicianship and, most of all, their exquisite vocal harmonies.

In the new album, those harmonies have been fused with more than 40 other voices from Hampshire’s Hart Voices and Surrey’s Chantry Singers to create new versions of 13 of Ninebarrow’s finest back catalogue songs, with musical director Roy Rashbrook, a member of the choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Hour of the Blackbird received four and five star reviews in the folk and mainstream media and Ninebarrow were named Best Band in FATEA Magazine’s 2025 Awards.