Mandy Connell

Mandy is bare souled & luminous on stage. With acclaim Throughout the Folk Scene Mandy is admired for her songwriting & delivery. She has toured the UK, formed Trad 5 piece ‘Stray Hens’, & continues to write original music.

“Mandy Connell is a folk festival favourite. She’s quick, bright-hearted and liable to break into song mid-sentence. On stage she conjures up moods with an ease that comes from living her music. “I identify as folk,” she says. “If there was an ethnic group you could call folk, that would be me. I’m there. I grew up in it, and I’ve always called myself folk… since before banjos were on t-shirts.” ~ James M Fahy (Wait Long by The River)

Winning the Declan Affley Award (National Folk Festival) in 2005 and the the Maldon Minstrel Award (Maldon Festival) in 2006, Mandey came second at the Port Fairy Songs of Peace and Tolerance Competition in 06 for her song ‘Riots in Redfern’.

Selling out of the 2010 album Tall Tales & Pretty Colours, and due to record the Girl Who Fell Off The Wall in 2015, Mandy has collected a steady following with endorsements from Paul Brady, Weddings Parties Anything, and from well known songwriters Judy Small and Eric Bogle as much for her reinterpretations of their work as for her own songs.

“Mandy Connell is the latest in a long and distinguished line of talented female musicians to grace the musical scene in Australia. A fine singer and songwriter in her own right, she also has the knack of taking other peoples’ songs, and by virtue of her original and unique interpretations making them her own, the mark of a truly gifted performer…” ~ Eric Bogle