There’s so much talent at the Belfast Nashville Festival it is difficult to single out particular song writers or performers. In fact I suggest you just go to the festival next year and hear all the acts yourself! But for what it’s worth, these are my picks of the 2016 Festival.

Sonia Leigh performed three songs in the final gig of this year’s Belnash. She really blew me away. She really belted out her songs and she has a really unique singing voice. This was the number she finished with.

Georgia Middleman and Gary Burr played this song at the Belnash Song Writing Convention to illustrate putting the title at the end of the verse and using soft internal rhyme rather than hard end line rhymes. It’s gorgeous.

I wanted to share Georgia’s song “Now that you’ve met Molly” as it was a beautiful, surprising song that really hit me emotionally when she played it. However, I couldn’t find a link to share. It’s on her album “Unchanged” so that’s a good reason to buy it!

Ciara O’Neill launched her debut album, “The Ebony Trail” in this year’s festival with a lovely intimate gig. This is the video for her current single, “Ghosts”.

Sam Wickens is another local talent to keep an eye on. He’s a fantastic singer, player and song-writer. Here’s a snippet of him playing the last song of the festival.

Finally, last weekend was also the Women’s Work festival at the Oh Yeah Centre in Belfast (you can find the Women’s Work festival on Facebook). Unfortunately, I missed a lot of it as I was at Belnash but I am so glad I got down to the International Women’s Day showcase. All the acts were fantastic but Saint Sister stood out for me. I picked up their EP “Madrid” and highly recommend you do too! Their song “Blood Moon” has been stuck in my head all week. They launched the Blood Moon video at the gig but it’s not on YouTube yet so keep an eye out for that!