CARDROSS fiddler Ryan Young is keeping his feet firmly on the ground – despite yet more awards success.

Ryan was named as the winner of the ‘Best Musician’ prize in the online Folking Awards after capturing more than a third of the public’s votes – beating off competition from internationally-renowned artists such as Fairport Convention founder Richard Thompson and Seth Lakeman.

And he then found himself rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in the folk music business at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards ceremony in Belfast.

Reflecting on his Folking Awards success, in which he took 35.6 per cent of the votes cast in the Best Musician category, 27-year-old Ryan told the Advertiser: “It feels amazing, especially when I found out there were 17,000 votes cast in all.

“The nominees were chosen by an expert panel and then voted on by the public.

“I wasn’t expecting to win. I felt that I stuck out a bit in the list of nominees because everyone else has been going for a lot longer than me – in fact, some of them have been going for longer than I’ve been alive!”

The other nominees for ‘best musician’ at the Folking Awards were Seth Lakeman, Richard Thompson, Kevin Crawford and Karen Tweed.

Other Folking Awards winners includes Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman as Best Duo, Merry Hell as Best Band and Strangers by The Young ‘Uns, while the Rising Star prize went to The Trials of Cato.

While there was no actual ceremony for the Folking Awards beyond an announcement of the winners on the folking.com website, it was a very different story at the Radio 2 awards at Belfast’s Waterfront – where Ryan shared the hall with global superstars such as Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart and Eliza Carthy.

But the biggest name of all at the ceremony was the legendary Van Morrison, who presented a Lifetime Achievement award to Irish musician and producer Dónal Lunny.

And while Ryan missed out on the prize in the Horizon Award category in which he’d been nominated, he still hugely enjoyed the experience – despite admitting to being more than a little starstruck.

“It was the first time I’d been nominated for a Radio 2 award,” he said, “so I never expected to win it.

“But it was a hugely glamorous thing, with TV cameras, live radio coverage and loads of famous people – and then there was me standing in the corner.

“I was dreading the prospect of having to stand up in front of all these people – I hadn’t even written an acceptance speech because I was sure I wasn’t going to win!”

Despite missing out on the Horizon Award – which went to the Glasgow-based five-piece Imar – Ryan said he was well aware that simply being nominated in the Radio 2 awards could be a huge boost for his career.

“You have to be seen in the right places,” he said. “It’s all about constantly trying to build your profile, and just to be there was a huge step forward for me.

“The really surreal part was speaking to famous musicians who knew exactly who I was and who really liked what I’m doing.”

Ryan, who was named ‘up and coming artist of the year’ in the 2016 MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards, and followed that up with an ‘album of the year’ nomination at the same awards in 2017, has already kicked off a busy 2018 touring programme by spending three weeks in Germany – and in the coming months he’ll be making festival appearances all over the UK and in Ireland, Belgium, France and Denmark too.

“There’s a big folk scene all over the world,” he said. “Everyone seems to love traditional Scottish and Irish music.”

Further into the future, he hopes to return to Germany to record a live album some time next year.

But in a manner typical of his unassuming persona, he insisted that both his live sets and his debut studio album, released last year, are more about the music than the person playing it.

“I just play the tunes and let the music speak for itself,” he said.

“It’s not about me – I’m showcasing the tunes, rather than the tunes showcasing me.”