About

Bringing you world class live music and online events, featuring the very best in Americana, bluegrass, folk and roots

Based in West Yorkshire, Maria Wallace has been successfully promoting live music events under the True North Music banner for the last 10 years, specialising in Americana, bluegrass, old time, folk & roots. Since January 2015 we’ve hosted over 60 gigs in Yorkshire, featuring exceptional artists from the USA, Canada, UK & Ireland, including Sierra Hull, Gangstagrass, Stillhouse Junkies, Molly Tuttle, Jaywalkers and Foghorn Stringband to name just a few (check out the gig archive here). As a booking agent, Maria has brought top flight roots music artists to hundreds of venues across the UK, booking tours for The Slocan Ramblers, Jake Blount, Front Country, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Bill and the Belles, Mile Twelve, John Reischman and many more. Both in our programming and booking roster, a fair level of gender representation is vital to us, and we’re also working to improve the overall diversity of our programme. Maria signed up to the Keychange Pledge in 2021 after years of pursuing this informally, and we have an excellent track record on this. Check out our Keychange page for more on this subject. 

“Maria has a passion for diversifying the genres she works in, in terms of race and gender, and a true commitment to supporting artist development and high quality live music.” – Remi Harris MBE, Leaders Network coach

Maria’s tireless work to champion grassroots live music has been recognised with various awards and opportunities. She received an Arts Council England DYCP (Developing Your Creative Practice) grant in 2022 to develop her podcast project, as well as National Lottery Project Grants funding to support True North Music’s local live music series in 2023-24. She participated in the 2021-22 cohort of the Both Sides Now Leaders Network, a leadership development programme for women working in music. In 2021 Maria was also named as a finalist in the  International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Momentum Awards, for Industry Involvement. In 2017 she won Yorkshire Gig Guide’s Outstanding Promoter award, and was a 2019 finalist. Maria was invited to the USA in 2018 by South Arts to participate in the American Sounds programme showcasing quintessentially American music to international presenters. In 2019 she was selected for the prestigious Leadership Bluegrass course run in Nashville by the IBMA. These opportunities have all been hugely valuable in building True North Music’s extensive network of world class artists and music industry contacts.

The Covid-19 pandemic was of course a hammer blow for everyone working in live music and the arts. Maria was passionate about keeping the flame of live music burning, so in the absence of our usual live music series in 2020 and 2021, she organised a series of online events with the support of Arts Council England funding. Both featured livestreamed concerts and online workshops, and were a big hit with True North Music’s followers. Since 2022 we’ve hosted a number of outstanding local gigs, including our 2023-24 grant supported live music series which has included successful school music workshops as well as the first Marsden Americana & Bluegrass Day. We livestreamed the performances from the festival, with high quality multi-camera filming from Northern Cowboy Films. You can check out those and all our other concert videos at our True North Music YouTube channel.  

Maria has been active in the bluegrass and folk-roots music community for over 15 years, as a singer, songwriter, musician, volunteer and fan, as well as a promoter and agent. Check out her artist website for more on Maria’s music and songwriting. With a former career in marketing, Maria has combined her previous job experience with her passion for roots music to build True North Music into a beacon of excellence, bringing some of the finest acoustic musicians in the world to appreciative audiences across the UK.  Check out our testimonials page for a taste of the overwhelmingly positive feedback that True North Music has received from music fans, musicians and community contacts.