Singer/songwriter Haley Heynderickx draws from a wide array of influences, citing her religious Filipino-American upbringing, the folk music of the 1960s and ’70s, jazz radio, and the idiosyncratic acoustic guitar styles of Leo Kottke and John Fahey. All of those ingredients find their way into her music, which pairs deft fingerpicking with lyrics that flirt with levity but hew toward introspection. Her first album, I Need to Start A Garden saw release in 2018. Following years of heavy touring, Heynderickx unveiled her 2024 album, Seed of a Seed.
Coming November 21st 2025, Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover partnered again for their second collaborative album, What of Our Nature via Fat Possum Records. The pair spent a year sharing songs from opposite corners of the country while reading Woody Guthrie’s words and biographies, slowly exploring a patchwork of Americanism to see where their stories fit. The result is a collection of music about profound friendship, the legacy of colonialism, generational identity, commercialism, and the slippery target of addressing social equity in song.
Mackintosh Queen’s Cross welcomes Tenille Townes back to Glasgow after her previous sold out show here in 2023.
For Tenille Townes, writing songs has always been a way of reaching out to anyone trying to make sense of a confusing world. In the last five years alone, the Canada-born, Nashville-based artist’s full-hearted and soul-searching songwriting has led to touring with legends like Stevie Nicks, Miranda Lambert, Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Reba, Zac Brown Band, George Strait, and Dierks Bentley, while earning two JUNO Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards, and 17 Canadian Country Music Association Awards. Along the way, Townes has built a globe-spanning fanbase drawn to her ability to tell deeply human stories with empathy, clarity, and hope.
“What I love about making music is the potential for my songs to meet people right where they are, but then leave them feeling a little more seen and lifted up than they were before,” says Townes. “Even if it’s just the comfort of knowing someone else feels the same way.” That mission continues into a bold new chapter with The Acrobat, Townes’ new album released on 10th April 2026.
Brian Bilston returns to Mackintosh Queen’s Cross to promote his new book How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside
The blurb goes: This is a book to help people overcome their suspicion (or loathing) of poetry, and maybe even encourage a few to write it. Well, maybe that’s a bit ambitious. You might just want to read the poems instead, of which there are 140, on subjects as diverse as pedantry, climate change, boogie management, beekeeping, procrastination, Mondays, Elon Musk and death.
Irvine Welsh, bestselling author of Trainspotting, returns to Glasgow to celebrate his legendary career and his newest novel Can Nothing Save Us?
Take a riotous tour of the bright lights and back rooms of Las Vegas in the company of one very dysfunctional family. Luke, the dropout son of wealthy Sin City grandparents, lives a hedonistic life of drugs and dance music, until he’s pulled into the orbit of a violent cult leader and triggers a horrifying sequence of events. Throw in suspicious neighbours, frustrated housewives, and the pressure cooker of Nevada heat, and it’s a thrill ride like no other.
Irvine will be joining us to discuss his fascination with troubled characters, the appeal of sub-cultures, the differences between writing Americans and Scots, and much more, as well as answering your questions and signing books.
Martyn Joseph is a completely unique and mind blowing artist. Take everything you think you know about singer songwriters….and rip it up. For one man and a guitar he creates a performance with a huge far-reaching sound that is energetic, compelling and passionate. Be it to two hundred people or twenty thousand, he blows the crowd away night after night.
After being signed to Sony Music in the early ’90’s, for whom he recorded 2 albums and achieved Top 40 chart success, Martyn became a trailblazer for independent musicians. He launched his own record label in 1999 forging a successful career using the internet, ahead of many other artists.
In July 2024 he was invited by BBC Radio 2 for a second time to write a song as part of their brand new award winning “21st Century Folk” project, following on from the success of his 2023 track, “Albert’s Place”, which featured in the original series, and which included appearances on BBC Breakfast TV, the Jeremy Vine and Ken Bruce shows on BBC Radio 2 along with Radio 4’s World at One.
At just 24, Jamie Duffy has emerged as one of Ireland’s most compelling new artists, blending folk, classical, and contemporary influences into a sound that’s both intimate and cinematic. His debut single Solas became the most streamed debut by an Irish artist since Hozier’s Take Me To Church, with over 135+ million streams on Spotify, 27 million YouTube views, and 7.3 billion views on TikTok.
In 2024, he released his debut EP On A Wing, sold out his first Irish headline tour (2,600+ tickets), and supported Andrea Bocelli and Hans Zimmer at BST Hyde Park.
In October 2025, he released his highly anticipated debut album Jamie Duffy. Crafted over two years between wild coastlines and still nights across the two awe-inspiring landscapes of Ireland and Iceland, the album reflects Jamie’s rural Monaghan roots, shaped by changing environments, Irish folklore, love, light and trepidation. It is a true labour of love and effort rarely known by those in their early twenties, but for Jamie, it was a journey he’s been working towards for some time. While evident themes of nature, journey, light and hope spring forward from early listens, the messages within the album, will hopefully, be different for everyone.
Alongside the album, Jamie has scored his first feature film 500 Miles, (starring Bill Nighy and Maisie Williams) due to be released in 2026. Reuniting with his album producer Atli Örvarsson at his home studio in London, the project highlights the creative strength and synergy between the two collaborators.
With over 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify and sold out dates across Ireland, UK and Europe, Jamie is cementing his status as a formidable and rapidly rising global artist whose music continues to resonate with a massive and expanding international audience.
Adam Holmes is a Scottish BBC award-winning songwriter whose work has found a distinct and enduring place in the UK folk landscape.
His songs have been broadcast across BBC Radio and featured in television and film, including Outlander and Apple TV productions.
In recent years, his music has reached a global audience, drawing in a new generation of listeners while staying close to those who have followed his work over time.
Raised in Portobello, the second youngest of eight children, Holmes grew up surrounded by music. The slow airs and church hymns of his childhood continue to shape his melodic sensibility, alongside early exposure to Edinburgh’s folk scene and long nights listening and learning old fiddle tunes by ear.
At 19, on the same day he was offered an apprenticeship on the building site, Adam received a call confirming his place in the semi-finals of the BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year. He chose music and has followed that path since.
In the years that followed he played a thousand times wherever he could. Small rooms, quiet corners and the kinds of spaces where a song either holds or it doesn’t.
He has shared stages with artists including Martin Simpson, Karine Polwart and John Prine and appeared on bills alongside Laura Marling, Van Morrison and Jason Isbell.
His work is defined by songs that reward attention. Songs that don’t always reveal themselves immediately but stay with people long after they’ve been heard.
Leading violinist, composer, and educator, Ayman Hlal was born in As-Suwayda, a city in Syria that is particularly famous for producing artists. Now based in Berlin, Ayman specialises in both Middle Eastern and Western classical music. Since leaving Syria as a result of war, he has participated in several national and international events and projects, and performed with multiple orchestras and bands, including the Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra (SEPO), and Nai’ Oriental Orchestra in Austria. In 2024, Ayman took part in the Making Tracks Residency at Cove Park.
Recipient of the 2026 Bagri Music Award presented by Cove Park and the Bagri Foundation, this live performance at The Mackintosh Church on Saturday 1 August takes place during Ayman’s two-week residency at Cove Park.
In 2025, international residency Cove Park announced a new two-year partnership with the Bagri Foundation, to launch Sound Series, a new programme of residencies bringing acclaimed international musicians to the UK. The Bagri Foundation works within a network of leading cultural organisations that champion artistic excellence and provide extraordinary artists from across Asia, wider visibility on the global stage. Working collaboratively with Cove Park to nominate and select the artists, the Bagri Music Award is aimed at artistic development and is a unique opportunity for acclaimed emerging or mid-career musicians from West Asia to spend quality time in Scotland.
This performance marks the culmination of Ayman’s Cove Park residency, developed in close collaboration with SEPO, the first Symphony Orchestra for professional and academic Syrian musicians who live in the European Union. SEPO was founded in September 2015 in Germany by the Syrian musician Raed Jazbeh.
In 2025 Cove Park announced a two-year partnership with the Bagri Foundation to launch Sound Series, a new programme of residencies bringing international musicians to the UK. Working collaboratively with Cove Park to nominate and select the artists, the Bagri Music Award is aimed at artistic development and is a unique opportunity for acclaimed emerging or mid-career musicians from West Asia to spend quality time in Scotland.
The Bagri Foundation works within a network of leading cultural organisations that champion artistic excellence and provide extraordinary artists from across Asia, wider visibility on the global stage.
The Bagri Music Awards makes possible two Sound Series residencies at Cove Park, the first in 2025 and the second in 2026, alongside live performances.
Join us for an extraordinary evening where Polish and Scottish cultures meet through the universal language of music. Pianists Maciej Granat and Aleksandra Hałat join forces with the PolSco Choir (directed by Maciej Granat) for a journey across genres and borders.
From the delightful elegance of classical rarities and the unfiltered emotions of traditional folk, to iconic film scores and contemporary pop, experience a specially chosen program in the stunning acoustics of Mackintosh Queen’s Cross.
Dvořák, MacMillan, Nyman, Eurythmics, Sośnicka and more!
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