Andy Cutting is an English folk musician and composer. He plays melodeon and is best known for writing and performing traditional English folk and his own original compositions which combine English and French traditions with wider influences. He is three times winner of the Folk Musician of the Year award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and has appeared on around 50 albums, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians.
He was born in Harrow, London and is married with three children.
Cutting in 2016
Andy Cutting backstage at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in 2016
Martin Simpson trio (all five of them) at Cambridge Folk Festival (Cutting, left)
Diatonic button accordion
A melodeon or diatonic button accordion is a member of the free-reed aerophone family of musical instruments. It is a type of button accordion on which the melody-side keyboard contains one or more rows of buttons, with each row producing the notes of a single diatonic scale. The buttons on the bass-side keyboard are most commonly arranged in pairs, with one button of a pair sounding the fundamental of a chord and the other the corresponding major triad.
Diatonic button accordion
Diatonic button accordion (German make, early 20th century).
Three-row button accordion with 12 bass buttons
1950s two-row instrument in C♯/D by the Paolo Soprani company, of the type favoured by Irish musicians; grey celluloid finish.