National award for Birmingham folk musician Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne

Cohen has been annoucned as one of the first recipients of a Friends Of Towersey Festival Award, and has been added to the bill at the Oxfordshire event as a result.

The awards aim to recognise emerging talent, offering artists whose practice broadly embraces roots, folk, jazz, blues, world and acoustic music developmental support and opportunities. As part of that, winners get main stage appearances at Towersey Festival over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Cohen is a singer and melodeon player whose solo material is rooted in the folk music of the British Isles. He was nominated for a BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award in 2014 as one third of folk trio Granny's Attic and was shortlisted for the Horizon Award at the 2018 Radio 2 Folk Awards. As well as his performances, he also offers tutoring either one-on-one or in group workshops.

He's joined as award recipients by Buckinghamshire's classical/fingerstyle instrumental guitarist Billy Watman and Bella Gaffney, a guitarist from Bradford.

A trustee from the Friends Of Towersey Festival said: "We’re delighted to be offering all three of these exciting young artists our first Friends awards, which will help them develop their careers over the year ahead. Billy, Bella and Cohen are all exceptional, and very different, artists who are very much one’s to watch."

The Friends Of Towersey Festival is a registered Charity which runs independently from the festival. Their new award will be officially launched at the festival in August, with applications for next year’s programme being launched in early 2019.

Based on the Oxfordshire/ Buckinghamshire border, Towersey Festival is one of the UK's longest running independent music festivals. Established in 1965, it has a long track record of supporting local causes, from championing numerous charities and young artists.

This year's festival features The Proclaimers, The Shires, Richard Thompson and Beth Orton, and runs from August 24 to 27.

For more information on Towersey Festival, click here and more on Cohen's work is available here.