Paddi Benson and Grace Lemon are two highly acclaimed Uilleann Pipers who met in London's thriving folk music scene. The pair joined forces in 2017 to write new music and explore the boundaries of piping, interchanging motifs and layering voices so that the two sets of pipes serve as accompaniment to each other.

Their current workings are centred around the archive catalogue held at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind; the historic mental health records of ‘Bedlam,’ and their resonance within the existing social context. Their debut piece, acuriousdance, is representative of the patient ballroom dances that took place throughout the 19th century, taking the listener on a journey through jig and waltz motifs into more mournful and chaotic movements drawing attention to a darker pervasions of Bedlam history. The intention is that the listener is caught between ‘who is playing what’, inspired by a line in Charles Dickens’ journal, The Uncommercial Traveller, where, walking passed the Bedlam Hospital in Southwark he commented, “Are not all of us outside this hospital, who dream, more or less in the condition of those inside it, every night of our lives?’ – a remark that sums up the wrongs of delineating the ‘affected’ from the ‘unaffected.”

The duo will be joined by James Patrick Gavin on guitar and fiddle.

Follow Paddi Benson & Grace Lemon on @acuriousdance or visit their website www.paddiandgracemusic.com