Playing Rapunzel

London-based duo Playing Rapunzel (Mich Sampson and Marilisa Valtazanou) started singing together in 2005, and have since performed in settings including a castle, a 12th century chapel, a shopping mall, a Georgian mansion, and more theatres, libraries, parks, hotels, village halls and pubs than you can shake a stick at.

Harmony singing is the band’s main feature; in addition, Mich plays the piano and talks a lot, while Marilisa plays any instrument she can get her hands on and giggles a lot at what Mich is saying.

Playing Rapunzel perform professionally as a folk duo, sneakily introducing filk songs to unsuspecting audiences (Oh! You want us to play at a book festival! Now, if only we knew any songs about books...) They have also played at filkcons in four different countries, and were International Guests of Honour at Consonance, Concertino, FilkCONtinental, and OVFF.

Playing Rapunzel have released two albums, Abseiling for Beginners, (2009) and Hanging by a Hair (2017). The long gap between the albums was obviously because of procreation (raising kids), and not at all related to procrastination. Really.