TALENT spotters should seek out the Black Swan Folk Club's Young Performers' Showcase on Thursday (24th).

Bill Jones, Emily Slade, Ola and the Witches Of Elswick have all played this event in their folk L-plate days, and now comes early exposure for Laura Hockenhull, KTB and Roll A Penny.

Solo singer Hockenhull, a student at the University of Central Lancashire, is the daughter of Helen Hockenhull, who contributes keyboards, lap organ and vocals to the folk group Grace Notes.

Laura, from Keighley, was a childhood regular at the Bacca Pipes Folk Club and sang on last year's re-recording of Peter Bellamy's ballad opera, The Transports.

On Thursday she will be accompanied by a keyboard player, possibly her mother.

KTB - the name is short for Katy Bennett - has been writing and performing her own songs since the age of 12, and she describes her music as "a little bit folk, a little bit jazz, a little bit country".

She reached the final of the BBC Young Folk Award in 2002, and released her first album, All Calm In Dreamland, the same year, since when she has been studying for a music degree at Birmingham University. Her second album is imminent.

Roll A Penny have emerged from Newcastle University's pioneering folk music degree course and their traditional and modern repertoire spans Tyneside to Tennessee and beyond.

In the trio are youngsters Katie Doherty, on vocals, keyboards and flute, and Andrew Cadie, on vocals, fiddle and guitar, together with mandolin and bouzouki player Roger Purves, a mature student and therefore an honorary young performer.

York action poet Adrian Spendlow is the master of ceremonies for an evening when each act has the time to do a full-length set in the absence of the usual floor turns. Admission is £6, concessions £5, from 8pm and all proceeds will be split between the three acts.

Updated: 10:11 Friday, February 18, 2005