News and Comment - No 34 |
Best wishes,
Ian Lawther
5.8.05
Resolution Hotel Function Room, Monday August 22nd at 6:00pm
Featuring:
Ken Hall and Peta Webb, Jim McFarland, Niamh Parsons, Jerry O'Reilly, Jim Mageean, George Unthank, Alan Fitzsimons, Pete Wood, Grace Toland, Brian Doyle, Patricia Flynn, Geordie McIntyre and Alison MacMoreland, The Wilsons, Eamonn O'Broithe, Roisin White, Bruce Scott, Rosie Stewart and others.
3.8.05
Venue: Yaa Asantewaa Arts & Community Centre, 1 Chippenham Mews, London, W9 2AN
Price: £7.50 adv, £8 door, concession £7 Time: doors open at 7pm, show starts at 8pm
Contact: Tel : 020 7286 1656 Email : info@londoncalypsotent.co.uk Website : www.londoncalypsotent.com
3.8.05
31.7.05
Although it will appear that you can't buy them unless you can send them US$, the FRC's organiser, Ray Alden, tells me that readers outside the States can email him at: rgamusic@bestweb.net and arrange to pay him via PayPal. When you contact him with you order, he will tell you the postal costs, and then you can pay him in PayPal's normal 'Send Money' way.
But please let me know if you have any problems ordering from Ray in this way. If it proves problematic, I'll discuss with him the possibility of MT Records stocking all 20 of his CDs.
31.7.05
It contains all the 59 known recordings of Gloucestershire's Stephen Baldwin - village and Morris dance fiddler. The 28-page booklet contains pretty-well all that is known about him and his family, as well as some information about his musical neighbours in the Forest. There are also 13 photos, including three previously unpublished ones from 1948, and an examination of Baldwin's unique fiddle style.
No one interested in English fiddling can afford to be without this CD and its excellent booklet - priced £12.00 inc UK p&p, from: www.mtrecords.co.uk
25.7.05
Located in the Pennine Hills in the Peak District National Park; featuring some of the best traditional singers and musicians
Confirmed guests include:
Contact: Mark Davies 0114 2851479 Mobile:07850475067 Email:edeophone@aol.com
23.7.05
7.7.05
Tom Munnelley's posting on the Irtrad-l group reads:
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that remarkable walking archive of traditional song and the most generous man who ever existed when it came to passing on songs, Frank Harte, was found by his daughter Orla in his Chapelizod home this afternoon slumped at the computer. Apparently a heart attack.Frank's funeral arrangements are as follows:
28.6.05
There were to have been three appearances:
Yes - Sylvie Barnes is back - and singing even better than ever, if last weekend in Dorset was anything to go by - don't miss her!
28.6.05
To make a donation, go to www.justgiving.com/emilydean It's very easy to sponsor - you just click the button and give your credit or debit card details - and you can leave a message too! If you pay UK tax, Justgiving will even collect 28% Gift Aid automatically on your donation, so it's even better for the charity.
16.6.05
So it's been necessary to increase the 'Shipping' rates on the MT Records website by a further 5%. Sorry about this, but there seems no real alternative.
Be aware - for purchasers living in the UK, paying by cheque and using the printable Order Form is now a substantially cheaper option.
Rod Stradling - 10.6.05
Fred McCormick - 2.6.05
So I'm pleased to tell you that it is now available here for just £12.00. It's worth mentioning that this excellent CD is by a fairly young player (45 years of age) who, nonetheless, plays in the old 'classic' launeddas style and eschews any attempt at improvisation. It is also about the only full CD of 21st century launeddas music to be easily available off the island of Sardinia.
If you've never heard the launeddas before, this is an excellent place to start. Anyone who enjoys European bagpipe music will just love this ... and I see no good reason why anyone else wouldn't.
Rod Stradling - 25.5.05
Once that's done, MT surfers may want to stick around for the second half. This will consist of a discussion between Geoff Speed and Fred McCormick, about Goodbye, Babylon, the remarkable anthology of religious music of the American South, which Fred reviewed for Musical Traditions last year.
Folkscene goes out on Sundays and the edition in question will be broadcast June 5th from 19:05 to 20:05. Radio Merseyside is on 95.8FM VHF and on digital. It can also be heard over the Internet on http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/radiomerseyside/
There is no Listen Again facility unfortunately, so it can only be caught during live transmission.
25.5.05
Based in the School of Arts and Cultures, the successful applicant will play a lead role in delivering the only Folk Music degree in England, developing postgraduate programmes and enhancing the research profile of this specialist area. The School's website can be viewed at School of Arts and Cultures.
For full details of the post, go to: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/vacancies/vacancy.phtml?ref=B486A
Informal enquiries about this post, may be made to either the Head of Music, Dr David Clarke (0191 222 6736), the current leader of the Folk Degree programme, Alistair Anderson (0191 443 4579), or the future leader of the Folk Degree programme, Vic Gammon (07905 032012 ). Closing date: 17/06/05.
25.5.05
With the Rounder Archive Series, out-of-print catalog items and new releases will be available in two forms: as downloadable digital files from one of the label's download partners and as limited edition CDs which may be purchased directly from Rounder (www.rounderarchive.com), or from one of the label's online retail partners. Complete liner notes, photos and original album art (which comprise dozens of pages on some releases) will be available as Adobe PDF files, which may be downloaded at no charge at www.rounderarchive.com , and which are also included on each disc.
Kicking off with the first installment on May 31, the Rounder Archive plans to offer 10-15 releases per quarter. Currently forthcoming releases are listed below:
* New Release
19.5.05
This event - entitled When Yellow's on the Broom - is unique. Never before, anywhere, have these performers all come together in one place, to celebrate the old-style Traveller culture in which they were brought up. It will be a great a day of story, ballad, music and general good crack. Spring was the time to head for the open road and a summer of hawking, pearl-fishing, berry-picking and tinsmithing. Stanley Robertson hosts one session about these various crafts and skills, while another recalls The Summer Walkers, the life of Travellers in the far north, in the company of Essie Stewart and Alec Williamson. The celebration will welcome anyone who has memories to contribute, of Travellers coming to their community.
Other highlights include Sheila Stewart remembering her 70 years of travel, in song and sparky anecdote; the dazzling piano-playing of Elizabeth Stewart, whose first CD of ballads and tunes is now out; and Jess Smith, author of two best-selling books, looking at childhood through Traveller eyes.
The 28th May also brings another first for the Highlands, the launch of a double CD: Tales of a Travelling Man/Sgeulachdan bho Mhac-cèaird - a sample from the superb range of traditional stories of Edderton's Alec Williamson, in both Gaelic and English.
Sessions run from 12 noon, and the evening concert begins at 7.30pm. Pick up a full programme at the Perrins Centre or local libraries, or contact Bob Pegg on telephone 01997-421186. When Yellow's on the Broom is part of The Merry Dancers Storytelling Project, a 3-year initiative by The Highland Council in Ross and Cromarty, supported by RACE and made possible by a generous award from the Scottish Arts Council Lottery Fund.
For further information contact: Bob Pegg or Mairi MacArthur: strath@ndo.co.uk or tel/fax: 01997-421186
16.5.05
Major traditional performers on the guest list include the renowned bothy ballad singer Jock Duncan from Pitlochry, Elizabeth Stewart from Mintlaw and Sheila Stewart from Blairgowrie. New to this year's event are Joe Aitken from Kirriemuir and Louis Killen from Newcastle. Further participants are the organisers of the event, Ron Bissett from Falkland and Peter Shepheard, Arthur Watson and Tom Spiers. Norman Kennedy and Anne Murstad (from Norway) will aslo be attending.
Numerous concerts, workshops and talks are in the programme, which can be seen in further detail at: www.springthyme.co.uk/events/fifesing2005.html
3.5.05
Alan Lomax believed it was imperative to return traditions to their home sources and artists, a strategy he called cultural feedback." In that spirit, on April 22, 2005 The Alan Lomax Database will go on-line; also, over the next ten months, the Association for Cultural Equity, which administers the Alan Lomax Archive, will send digital copies of audio and video recordings and photographs by Alan Lomax to a number of libraries and archives in the US, the Caribbean, and Europe so that they will be available locally to people in or from the regions in which they were originally made.
The Alan Lomax Database - www.lomaxarchive.com - is a free service. This multimedia catalog of the audio and video recordings and photographs made by Alan Lomax from 1946 - 1994 is designed to be an inclusive record of Lomax's recordings of music and the spoken word; it thus documents all recordings, including interrupted tracks and false starts. It can be searched by performer, song title, geography, culture, genre, subject, instrument, collection, session, and recording date. Users can print out single-page reports of their search results. Photographs taken by Lomax during the field trips are linked to the appropriate sessions and also available in a separate searchable catalog. Every audio recording in the catalog can be heard in samples of forty seconds (music, spoken word) to two minutes (radio shows, discussions, lectures).
The first six collections to go on line are: Texas Gladden & Hobart Smith 1946; Calypso Concert 1946; Mississippi Prison Recordings 1947 and 1948; Big Bill Broonzy 1952; Southern Journey US 1959 and 1960; and Central Park Concert 1965. These will be followed by the remainder of Lomax's field trips, each to go on-line as they are completed. It will also ultimately include some of the older collections of audio recordings made by Lomax on behalf of the Library of Congress in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Alan Lomax Archive is also in the process of donating digital copies of selected collections to some 20 libraries and archives in the US and abroad, largely in the regions in which the recordings were made. Donation agreements have been signed with fifteen of these institutions. By the end of 2005, a total of 4,500 hours of audio recordings and 2,014 hours of video recordings will have been disseminated.
25.4.05
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