Folk at the Maltings will kick off 2021 with an online concert on New Year’s Day.

Organisers at St Albans Folk Music have pulled together a line-up for Friday, January 1 featuring the Devines, plus singer-songwriter Elie Rees and singer and fiddle player Nancy Potts.

The afternoon online concert will start at 5pm.

The Devines are a musical family firmly rooted in the Irish tradition.

They are multi-instrumentalist John Devine, saxophonist Caz Devine, and their son Joe on guitar and banjo.

This fantastic trio is based in West Herts, but known nationally in the UK and Ireland for delivering a mix of traditional and contemporary Irish folk.

Usually the trio tours arts centres and festivals in the UK and Ireland, but like other performance artists, they have been unable to do this under lockdown.

Despite this, they have been far from idle.

John has produced and released three tracks from a new collection of songs called The Boy on the Bus.

The latest song, Life Getting Sweeter, will be released at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and there is more new material in the pipeline.

Joe has released the first single from a new solo EP entitled One Foot Forward.

The Devines have participated in several online events over the summer and are thrilled to be asked to be part of this New Year’s Day concert.

After many years of grounding in folk and jazz as a flute player, Elie Rees turned to songwriting and performing seven years ago.

She uses folk style narrative lyrics with percussive acoustic guitar arrangements to build her set.

New Roots 2019 finalist Nancy Potts was brought up firmly in the folk world.

The daughter of ceilidh musicians and Morris dancers, she specialises in playing for dancing and sings a variety of songs both for performance and social settings.

Tickets for the online gig are £12 for individuals, £20 for two people using the same device, £25 for three or more people using the same device. Concessions are £10, £15 for two people sharing the same device, and £20 for three or more.

To book go to www.ticketsource.co.uk/stalbansfolkmusic