Stevens & Pound

BBC Radio 3’s award-winning Delia Stevens and three-time BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of the Year nominee, Will Pound present an unprecedented cross-genre collaboration following the creative evolution of classical composers who were inspired by folk.

Traditional melodeon and harmonica collide with a dizzying array of percussion instruments. Imaginations run riot within an extraordinary sonic landscape.

​Stevens & Pound’s creative process of recomposition sees folk musician Will Pound learning scores exclusively by ear, reinterpreting classical music through the lens of traditional performance. Classically trained percussionist Delia Stevens draws on her unique sound world to help bridge the gap between complex classical structures and the fluidity of folk music. Together they transform their collective pasts into a re-imagined future.  ​

In 2024 Stevens & Pound collaborated with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Northern College of Music and conductor Clark Rundell to premiere their first orchestral recomposition The Silent Planet. The duo’s double concerto reimagines Mars, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter from Holst’s iconic Planets Suite. Holst deliberately omitted Earth as “astrologically insignificant” from the perspective of the human stargazer. Stevens & Pound wrote an additional movement – Earth: The Silent Planet – in collaboration with the youth-led activist non-profit Force of Nature to amplify the muted voices of the climate crisis. 

As well as touring as a duo across the UK including Petworth, Lichfield, Thaxted, Dunster and Swaledale Festivals, 2024 saw Stevens & Pound tour Wales with Sinfonia Cymru as concerto soloists, performing their reimagination of The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams in a co-curated programme called Regenerate alongside the violinist Simmy Singh.

In Summer 2025, Stevens & Pound will start developing new material with the award-winning writer Robert Macfarlane whilst continuing to write new duo pieces and recomposing existing works for percussion, harmonica, melodeon and orchestra.

The 2025/26 season will also see the launch of Stevens & Pound’s debut album Ascending which they will be touring extensively across the UK including performances at Hay Festival, Ulverston Festival, St. Magnus International Festival, Fishguard Festival of Music, FolkEast Festival and King’s Place, London.

Silent Planet will be touring with orchestra in 2026 and 2027.

“We feel so lucky to be releasing singles from our debut album already and to be touring so much this early on. We only met on Instagram a couple of years ago and have already had the privilege of sharing the stage with musicians whom we have hugely admired. We are about to write new works with some more incredible artists and we cannot wait to realise those performances. Our next goal is to take the Stevens & Pound live experience to different parts of the world.” Delia Stevens & Will Pound