COMBINING mastery with mischief, tradition with modernity, and technical maturity with youthful freshness, Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley are two of the fastest-rising stars on today's international folk circuit. Born and raised in the northern Scottish islands of Orkney, the twin sisters began performing together - Jennifer on fiddle. Hazel on guitar and piano - when barely into their teens. A decade or so later, their fan-base stretches around the world, built up through an increasingly hectic schedule of tours and festival appearances in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Far East.

This universal audience appeal reflects both the calibre of their music - a sparkling blend of traditional, contemporary and original material, invigorated with jazz, blues and ragtime flavours - and the effervescent charm of their performances. Their recorded output, too - from their 1991 debut Dancing Fingers, its successor The Watch Stone (1994), their third album Huldreland to their fourth and latest Mither 0' The Sea - reveals their growing assurance and sophistication, with their own compositions, chiefly written by Jennifer, making up an ever-greater share of their repertoire.

The Wrigleys' recent itinerary has taken in the Scottish Folk Festival Tour of Germany, the North American Folk Alliance, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Calgary Folk Festivals, the San Francisco Celtic Festival, the California World Music Festival, the Evolving Tradition festival in London, and several appearances at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. Extended world tours in 1997 and 1999 took them through Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bali, Australasia and North America, with another, similar trip planned for 2001. Career highlights include Jennifer's winning the BBC Young Tradition Award, the UK's premier accolade for new folk talent, in 1996, and a collaboration with top contemporary classical percussionist and composer Evelyn Glennie, commissioned for the 1998 Northlands Festival.

The sisters are also actively involved with Live Music Now, a charity founded by Yehudi Menuhin to take live music to communities who rarely get the chance to experience it, and in 1997 they performed for the organisation's 25th anniversary concert at London's Barbican Centre, before an audience that included Prince Charles. The sisters are working on a long-planned book and CD collection of traditional and contemporary tunes from their native Orkney, the first such project featuring the islands' music. Playing as a duo, though, is still what comes most naturally - they are twins, after all - with the close-knit attunement between them lending their sound a range, depth and spontaneity that's uniquely their own. Following Huldreland's collaborations with an array of distinguished guests, Mither 0' the Sea returns the musical focus to this unique two-way interaction, resulting in the Wrigleys' richest and most rewarding album yet.