Olivia Chaney

A gifted multi-instrumentalist from England, Olivia Chaney has risen to prominence among the leading figures in contemporary British folk music. Her abilities as a composer of original material and as a performer of traditional pieces shine through a transparent, emotionally direct vocal delivery and confident command of piano, guitar, harmonium, and cello; the resulting sound brings to mind such established names as Sandy Denny, Maddy Prior, and June Tabor. Beyond her well-received solo albums The Longest River (2015) and Shelter (2018), she has worked with Seth Lakeman, Kronos Quartet, and Alasdair Roberts, and belongs to Offa Rex, the wide-ranging folk-rock ensemble that also features the Decemberists.

Chaney entered the world in Florence, Italy, in 1982 and grew up primarily in Oxford, England. As a child she immersed herself in her father’s record collection, absorbing the songwriting of Bob Dylan and the British folk-rock approach of Fairport Convention and Bert Jansch; she also joined him for occasional boogie-woogie sessions at the family piano. At fourteen she earned a scholarship to Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, where she concentrated on piano and voice within the classical curriculum, later transferring on another scholarship to London’s Royal Academy of Music to pursue jazz and improvisation.

Once her formal training ended, Chaney balanced self-directed study of guitar and harmonium with stage work as an actress and singer for several British theater ensembles, among them Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. She issued a self-released EP in 2010 that drew strong praise for its fusion of traditional and modern elements and helped establish her reputation within the U.K. folk scene. That same year she contributed to two Folk Police Records compilations—The Oak, Ash and Thorn Project and The Woodbine & Ivy Band—both of which appeared in 2011, and she took part in sessions for Seth Lakeman’s Hearts & Minds, Alasdair Roberts’s A Working Wonder Stone, and Wolf People’s Fain. She also performed and recorded with the Balearic Folk Orchestra. In 2013 the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards recognized her with two nominations: the Horizon Award for emerging artist and Best Original Song for “Swimming in the Longest River.”

Shortly after those nominations, Nonesuch Records announced a contract with Chaney; her debut for the label, The Longest River, reached stores in April 2015. Two years later she appeared on two tracks of Kronos Quartet’s Folk Songs album and released Queen of Hearts, the Grammy-nominated first album by Offa Rex, the folk-rock supergroup uniting Chaney with the Decemberists. Later in 2017 she recorded her second Nonesuch album, Shelter, under the guidance of producer Thomas Bartlett (known for work with David Byrne, Father John Misty, and St. Vincent). The June 2018 release contained eight original compositions and two covers.