SINGING came easy to the young folk performer-to-be Bella Hardy.

Hailing from Derbyshire’s Dark Peak with its rich tradition of communal song, she was born into a family of singers and began singing locally from an early age, later also taking up the fiddle.

Now one of the country’s top folk singers, Bella, 30, will be bringing her mix of traditional and self-written numbers to the Cornerstone arts centre at Didcot on Saturday, December 6.

She was named Folk Singer of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards this year, having previously won the award for the Best Original Song in 2012 with The Herring Gull.

Bella grew up in Edale in a family who sang in the local choir and, loving books, she found herself fascinated by the tales told by performers in old ballads.

She embarked on her journey into a folk-singing career when she joined a school ceilidh band and started attending folk festivals.

At the Folkworks summer school in Durham, Bella joined the teenage ensemble The Pack at the age of just 13, going on to perform with them for ten years on the main stages of the well-established Sidmouth, Warwick and Cambridge festivals. In 2004, she reached the finals of the BBC Young Folk Award.

And, aside from performing, it was not long until her song-writing talent shone through, with her first composition Three Black Feathers being nominated in the Best Original Song category at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2008. Four years later, she was to win that section with her moving account of the life of a 19th-century Stornoway herring girl.

Bella played the folk club and festivals circuits accompanied by former Last Night’s Fun box player Chris Sherburn, while also working on other projects.

One of her long-held aims was the recording of an album with Brit folk star Eliza Carthy and friends Lucy Farrell and Kate Young. All singers and fiddle players, the foursome released their debut album Laylam at the beginning of last year.

To date, Bella has produced six albums, with the latest Battleplan released in April last year.

Bella’s debut CD solo album Night Visiting came out in September 2007 with traditional and original songs including material from Edale’s neighbouring valley of Castleton. It was followed by In the Shadow of Mountains in August 2009 which included her songs of modern social history, particularly the 2007 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which hit farming communities. Her remaining three albums were Songs Lost and Stolen in April 2011, The Dark Peak and The White in May 2012 and Bright Morning Star, Bella’s collection of Christmas songs, in November 2011.

Tickets for Bella’s 8pm concert at the Cornerstone are £14.50 and £13 concessions and are available from the box office on 01235 515144 or online at the centre’s website: www.cornerstone-arts.org