The Cartwheelers

A Barn Dance or Ceildh caller is a crucial element of the lineup. A good caller simply makes the event. Callers can vary and without a caller who is attentive to everyones' abilities; who is kind, considerate and good humoured and who knows the dances inside out, an evening can be a dissapointment.

We work with different callers depending on the location and availability. Without putting too fine a point on it, they are all top notch. They've tens of years and hundreds of gigs worth of experience. We frequently get comments about how the caller has made a party a success. See our testimonials!

Dances which feature in all our callers' repertoire are: 'The Gay Gordons', the 'Dashing White Sergent', the 'Cumberland Square Eight' and of course, 'Strip the Willow'.

If you have a specific dance you'd like to make sure we do, please let us know and our caller will liaise with you and make every effort to include it.

Patrick (Guitars, bass, mandolin, mandola)

Having played guitar, bass and mandolin for longer than he cares to admit, Patrick is a competent player and musician. He has worked with various bands and artists and played at diverse venues including Glastonbury 2009.   Patrick’s playing adds driving, innovative but subtle rhythms and harmonies to the band’s overall sound – helping to create the suspense and build up in each dance that gets dancers clapping and whooping with excitement.  Patrick plays a number of instruments which adds variety to each tune and dance - all limbs working at once to play guitar and bass pedals.  An experienced sound engineer, Patrick also makes sure there's an added quality to the music out front. Patrick has a BA Hons in Performing Arts (Music)

Iona (Fiddle)

Iona has been on the fiddle since she was 6 years old! Having been immersed in the Scottish traditional music scene from a very young age she was a prize winner in many of the fiddle festivals and fiddle society competitions through her school years and performed with her sister, Sharon, throughout her childhood and years at college.  She studied viola at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama gaining a BA and PGDipMus in 2002 before heading south of the border to take up an orchestral viola job with the Southbank Sinfonia in London. 

Having intended to stay for ‘just the one year’ before returning to her native Scotland she managed to stumble across the amazing county of Wiltshire and liked it so much that this is where she has stayed!  Iona is also in demand as a violin/viola teacher and runs Super Strings East, based at Marlborough College, where she coaches young string players to play in orchestras and develop their skills, often introducing the aspiring young musicians to get involved in playing folk music along the way.  

Sharon (fiddle)

As a violinist Sharon has performed at festivals as diverse as Glastonbury, Sidmouth Folk Festival, Bruges Early Music Festival, BBC Proms, and Marlborough Jazz. Her theatre work includes many productions for the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, and she has also featured on BBC radio and TV plays as a ballad singer and fiddle player.

Chris (Pipes, whistles and flutes)

Chris lives in a luxurious hedge on the borders of Wilts/Oxon saturated with birdsong, beguiled by beehives and insulated with a myriad of musical instruments. Raised in the Chiltern Hills, his father's people Scottish, his mother's people Welsh and English, with a 'union jack' of a heritage, he eventually found his place within sight of the Uffington Horse drawing together British folklore and a free-spirited family. He mostly plays winds and percussion with the Cartwheel Ceilidh Band. Ofttimes an open holed Pratten style flute made by Tony Milyard, Border Bagpipes by Jon Swayne, various whistles and an ancient Bohdran. On special occasions you may even be treated to a song...

Chris is also available for hire as a solo Highland Piper for special events. This is a great addition to a wedding or birthday, a New Year party or a special corporate event. Please contact us to find out more

Brian (Drums, percussion)

Brian's early playing experiences were with post-punk 'new wave' bands, progressing through heavy rock, folk, pop and a stint with the Berkshire Youth Jazz Orchestra before his college education blew the horizons wide open.

Since then he has performed and recorded with pit orchestras, folk groups, jazz combos, rock bands, world music groups, solo artists, you name it...