Stewart Hardy

Northumbrian and Traditional Music presented by the Tyneside Fiddle Alliance.

7.30pm (doors open 6.45pm)
Tickets £5 from TFA members, on the door or email fiddle.alliance@gmail.com

For this concert the Tyneside Fiddle Alliance will perform music from their ever expanding repertoire. The programme will feature a feast of traditional music blended with beautiful harmonies and accompaniments. In the concert this year we are delighted to be joined once again by Woolsington Strings, a smaller ensemble whose members are familiar faces from the region’s community music groups. There will also be solo and duet performances from some of our leaders and members. The Fiddle Alliance has enjoyed supporting the local music festivals this year, and have again been winning awards in Morpeth and Rothbury, and this is their final performance of the year – where better than the beautiful surroundings of St Mary’s, Gateshead.

Tyneside Fiddle Alliance are delighted to have been asked to perform a support spot at the Tynedale Accordion & Fiddle Club. We’ll be on in the first half, before the main act which is the Addie Harper Band from Wick.

You can read more details about the club on their website:
http://www.boxandfiddle.com/tynedale.html or on their Facebook page.

Arrangement Techniques (Mixed Instruments)

28th Feb – 1st Mar 2020
Ushaw College, Durham
3.00 pm start & finish time.

Join Stewart in the beautiful surroundings of Ushaw College in Durham for a weekend workshop exploring arrangement techniques for mixed instrument ensemble. Courses are open to players of any instrument (including transposing instruments) and are aimed at a broad range of abilities from intermediate to advanced. Workshops focus on techniques for arranging tunes for the combination of instruments to hand, using tools such as tempo, texture, dynamics and harmonic structure to create a musical narrative. To enjoy the full benefits of these courses, participants should be able to read notation or confidently and quickly pick up tunes and musical ideas by ear. We will aim to create well-mixed groups by monitoring the instrumentation as participants sign up for the course.

The workshops typically take between 8 and 12 people from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. The residential weekend fee of £335 covers all food, tuition, daytime refreshments and overnight single occupancy, en suite accommodation. The non-residential rate is £250 and includes everything except bed & breakfast. Sheet music and mp3 files of the tunes covered are sent out in advance, and recordings of arrangements created during the course are sent on to you afterwards.

For further information or to book your place on this course, please email Ali (jsarts@stewarthardy.co.uk)

Tyneside Fiddle Alliance will be in St George’s Church, Jesmond on Saturday 14th March for a celebration of traditional music from Northumberland and beyond. They are delighted to be sharing the concert with The Northumbrian Ranters, a fantastic group of young musicians who meet regularly to rehearse in Morpeth. The evening promises to be full of energy with a variety of traditional tunes from both groups.

All tickets £5. Doors open 6.30 pm.

Tickets will be available on the door, or in advance online.
Reservations can be made via the Contact Form, email or the TFA Facebook page.

Advanced Fiddle Technique

1st – 3rd May 2020
Parcevall Hall, Appletreewick, Skipton, N. Yorks BD23 6DG
3.00 pm start and finish time.

Join Stewart in the beautiful surroundings of Parcevall Hall in North Yorkshire, for a weekend of intensive fiddle tuition. The workshop will typically take between 8 and 12 people from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. The residential weekend fee of £335 covers all food, tuition, daytime refreshments and two nights single occupancy accommodation, some of which is en suite (for medical reasons, then first come first served). The non-residential rate is £250 and includes everything except bed & breakfast. Sheet music and mp3 files of the tunes covered are sent out in advance, and recordings of arrangements created during the course are sent on to you afterwards.

These courses are centred around the technical issues that come with playing fiddle music, with as much emphasis on the how as there is on the what. Focusing on left-hand and bowing technique, with stylistic interpretation of the music a key feature, these workshops delve deep into the tunes, extracting exercises to improve technique and allow its application to a wider repertoire. Tunes are carefully selected for their technical or stylistic content whilst also baring in mind practical considerations such as their usefulness in folk music sessions or as dance repertoire. The tunes are taught ‘as if by ear’, meaning they are taught phrase by phrase at a tempo and with sufficient repetition to enable learning without recourse to reading notation, but with notation available at any point should that be desired or necessary. This encourages the development of aural pattern recognition and general musicality, enhancing musicianship and the enjoyment of playing music in social settings.

This Advanced Fiddle Technique course is aimed at proficient players with good to high technical competence, who are comfortable with their instruments and their repertoire and who may have some of the following experience and skills:

• – Playing folk tunes at dance tempo
• – Comfortable in key signatures of up to 3 sharps and 1 flat
• – Familiarity with key signatures of up to 4 sharps and 3 flats
• – Attending folk music sessions and joining in with the tunes
• – Leading sets of tunes in sessions
• – Playing in ceilidh and/or concert bands
• – Teaching violin and/or fiddle

Places on Advanced Fiddle Technique courses are available on application. For further information or to express your interest in this course, please email Ali (jsarts@stewarthardy.co.uk)