IRISH folk singer Cara Dillon is happy to perform in all manner of settings, be it at Harrogate Theatre tomorrow or in China earlier this year.

"We were in China for nine days just now," she says.

"We were originally contacted last year and went out there for five shows at that time and now we've gone back for nine more days, after we discovered my first two albums are on the curriculum there on the English course.

"So the audience were all under 25 and some have been listening to my music for ten years now. When they go to school, the first thing they do in the morning is their exercises in the hall, or outdoors if it's a lovely day, when they would exercise to Lark In The Clear Air."

Cara and her musicians played to 700 to 1,000 people at her concerts in the big cities. "Last year, we did two of three social halls and this year we've been trying out rock venues, like seedy basements," she says.

"Then we figured out, when we were listening to different forms of Chinese music, that they're not really into pop but folk songs with the same kind of melodies that we use.

"Music is a universal language, and though there are language problems, as they might not understand the lyrics, they're drawn to the melodies. It's like being in a trance and getting carried away by that."

Maybe Cara's latest album, last May's A Thousand Hearts, will be added to the Chinese curriculum for English studies, like 2001's self-titled debut and 2003's Sweet Liberty before it.

The record is her first studio set since Hill Of Thieves in 2009 and its combination of modern Americana, traditional ballad and modern pop takes the common theme of affairs of the heart.

A Thousand Hearts will take centre stage in tomorrow's set list. "Maybe it's being selfish, but even though it was released in May last year, it's still fresh to us," says Cara, whose use of "we" is a reference to her husband, Sam Lakeman, the album's producer and arranger.

"We've done five albums now and we've had an amazing response to this one; first at festivals and then we've had a fantastic reaction in our concerts, and I've been nominated for folk singer of the year in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

"Whether you win or not, those award nominations can make a huge difference to album sales, and it's just an honour to be nominated. We were nominated for Best Album for Hill Of Thieves and won that one in 2010, and that changed things for us as it was the first album we released on our own label, and that justified it for us."

Cara and Sam had been "quietly confident" when they decided to break away from the major labels to launch Charcoal Records. "We knew it was the best way to do it, with ourselves at the helm of the ship," she says. "I get on with the concerts and the family life with our three children; Sam is the one in the office running all that side of it.

"At the start, you're naive and you trust in the record companies because you think they know best, but then you get to the point where you think, 'I don't feel confident in trying this'. So when we broke away and did our first album on our own, it felt like that was when things came good; we felt were turning things round; the relief of getting out of that situation."

Breaking away in 2008 has proved to be a "great experience". "We learned so much; Sam learned how to be a producer and how to run things and it's great to be in control," says Cara.

"We've definitely got the balance right now. Leaving the children [twin sons, aged eight, and a daughter, aged four] for nine days to go to China was the longest we'd spent away for a long time, but mostly we can spend the majority of the time together as we don't work 9 to 5."

Achieving that balance, giving time to their children and their music, has led to the hiatus between albums, but the wait has been worth it for 39-year-old Cara and Sam, who worked on A Thousand Hearts with such guests as The Eagles' Timothy B Schmit, American singer/songwriter Aoife O'Donovan and English folk guitarist John Smith.

Tracks vary from River, Run, originally recorded by Nineties' Lancaster indie pop act Suddenly Tammy!, to a take on Shawn Colvin's Shotgun Down The Avalanche, via the traditional As I Roved Out and an old hymnal song, Bright Morning Star.

Threading it all together was the task of Sam. "I couldn’t do it without Sam. I wouldn’t be interested in doing it now without him," says Cara. "When I have ideas of my own or find a traditional song, Sam will breath a whole new lease of life into them. It has something to do with him coming from Dartmoor, a background that is completely different from mine in County Derry, and being able to give it a completely new twist."

Cara Dillon plays Harrogate Theatre tomorrow, 7.30pm. Box office: 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk