Olivia Chaney

Olivia Chaney is a composer, singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and folk musician. Her original compositions explore themes such as the tension between tradition and modernity, inherited trauma, the relationship between nature and the inner life, and the role of the uncanny in the everyday. Chaney’s distinctive arrangements of traditional folk songs use complex rhythms, unusual harmonies and sparse instrumentation, and her reworking of Baroque ​‘art songs’, especially those by Henry Purcell, endears them to new audiences by highlighting the improvisatory aspects of his writing while modifying harmony and setting.

Trained at Chetham’s School of Music and The Royal Academy, Chaney signed with Nonesuch Records, leading to collaborations with Kronos Quartet and a Grammy nomination for The Queen of Hearts, a collaboration with The Decemberists. Through Nonesuch Records, Chaney released two solo albums, The Longest River, produced by Leo Abrahams in 2015, and Shelter, produced by Thomas Bartlett in 2018. In 2024, Chaney self-released her third solo album, Circus of Desire, produced by Thomas Bartlett, with contributions from Sam Amidon and Nico Muhly, and remixes from Dave Okumu, Oliver Coates and Sebastian Gainsborough aka Vessel. 

Her latest single, Dark Eyed Sailor, was featured in the 2026 cinematic release of Wuthering Heights. Chaney is currently working on a project to bring together her rewritings of Purcell into a work that bridges early music and contemporary songwriting through the folk idiom. She is also responding to the growing appetite for traditional music among a wider indie audience by forming a folk-rock group, News from Nowhere.