SHEPLEY folk musician Jack Rutter has won a top national award – and will celebrate with a gig on his home turf.
The 18-year-old from Shepley is part of the band Moore, Moss and Rutter who won the Young Folk category in Monday night’s BBC Radio 2’s Young Folk Awards.
And he has revealed the band will now by playing at Shepley Spring Festival on May 20-22.
Jack (pictured) said: “It will be great to play at the festival again. We won’t be taking the trophy though – we don’t want to lose it.
“It was brilliant to win and to go up on stage at the awards and make an acceptance speech.”
Jack, who is studying countryside management at Kirklees College, met bandmates Tom Moore, 17, and 16-year-old Archie Churchill-Moss through folk festivals across the country.
Tom, who plays the fiddle, is from Norwich. Archie, an accordionist, is from Glastonbury.
The trio, who have only been together for 18 months, have already established a name for themselves on the folk scene and played at the Glastonbury Festival last year.
Former Shelley College student Jack spends one day a week working at Cannon Hall Country Park.
This autumn he hopes to start a degree in countryside management at Newcastle University.
As part of their prize for winning, Moore, Moss and Rutter will now record a session on the Mike Harding Show – Radio 2’s weekly folk show – and perform at top UK festivals, including the prestigious Cambridge Folk Festival.
