And there’s more! To brighten up the winter months during lockdown and with all that’s going on in the world, here is another set of workshops. Join me on the Friday evening, 29th January, for a Play-along Session with loads of harmonies provided, and for two Fiddle Workshops on Saturday 30th Jan. These workshops are…
December Workshops
The autumn has flown by and as we head towards a further lockdown I thought it would be nice to have some more workshops to look forward to. The feedback from the October workshops was very positive, and so we will repeat the format, with a Play-along Session in Harmony on the Friday evening, and…
October Workshops
As we are unable to run our lovely residential weekends at the moment, I thought a few workshops might be welcomed! It will certainly be lovely to see some happy faces taking part on Zoom! The Friday evening Play-along session on 2nd October is open to all instruments. I’ll play the tune through your headphones,…
July Fiddle Workshops
I am excited to annouce that there will be three online Fiddle Workshops on 25th and 26th July, open to all intermediate & advanced fiddle players. Drawing on what we have learned in various group workshops during lockdown these workshops will be held on Zoom, focusing on three fabulous tunes associated with the North East….
Virtual Summer School with NEFS
North East Fiddle School is hosting an online Summer School in August with some wonderful guest tutors. There will be guided fiddle practices, live workshops, exclusive video tutorials, Q&A panels, a play-along session led by the tutors and a Summer School Tutors’ Concert. Melissa Whitehead and I are joined by Sophy Ball, Kevin Lees, Grace…
Virtual NEFS!
North East Fiddle School is online! We are running our first block of virtual classes, using pdfs of worksheets, audio files of studio recordings of the tunes at different speeds, and video tutorials on YouTube for interactive technical practice sessions and for teaching the tunes with bowing and ornamentation. We are also running Fiddle Technique…
Interesting times
Well, it’s the morning after the PM’s address to the nation advising against unnecessary contact and travel, staying away from pubs and theatres and working from home wherever possible. Quite where that leaves us is difficult to say. Schools are still open for now so does that mean educational activity is still encouraged? Probably not,…
A Spring Celebration
Tyneside Fiddle Alliance are hosting a concert which will be A Spring Celebration of Northumbrian Music, and will be joined the by The Northumbrian Ranters. The concert will be in St George’s Church, Jesmond on Saturday 14th March and will provide a feast of traditional music from Northumberland and beyond. The Northumbrian Ranters are a…
New Tunes for Christmas
As a celebration of the year, or indeed in an effort to focus on the positive in these current ‘interesting times’, I’d like to offer four tunes, free to download for a limited period, that came too late to be included in my 30 Years Collection. Links to the audio, notation and the zip files…
37th Annual Glenties Fiddlers Weekend
Graham Dixon continues to be a great ambassador for the fiddle music of North East England. His books on Robert Whinham and James Hill are among my favourites and I would recommend them to anybody. He is also a lovely, lovely man. So when he asked me to play some of James Hill’s tunes to…
Recordings
Facebook Feed
This year the Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering is taking place online, with a mix of YouTube and Zoom calls. You can visit their page and look at the programme for all the events. Here's the link for the Saturday evening concert with a recorded video spot (including a guest appearance from Emma and Yannik!) It will go live on YouTube on Sat 10th April at 7.00 pm.youtu.be/LoEEw_U4WsE
The event is not ticketed, but you can donate here to support the festival: gofund.me/bc3d36f4This event will be available online from the scheduled time on Saturday 10th April. The YouTube link will be youtu.be/LoEEw_U4WsE . The concert has international connections - Glowan were filmed at home in Canada, while the singers of Tonbande are from the Louis Braille Blind School at Dueren in Germany. Tonbande were recorded at the Bridge Folk Club in Newcastle in June 2019 when they came as guests of the Gathering, later singing at the Chantry. (Thanks to Eric, Peter and Mike at the Bridge for the video)
For links and information on other Online Gathering events see the Morpeth Gathering Facebook page or visit www.northumbriana.org.uk/gathering . If you would like to support this year's free Gathering online events, please consider making a donation at gofundme.com/f/morpeth-northumbrian-gathering .
Huge thanks to Wil Walker (ExileFM) for including 'White Jock' on his Take on Tradition playlist for this week. It's available for one week from 6th April, so check out the link - what a great line up!www.mixcloud.com/WilWalker
If you like the track, the album is available to download from the website 😊
www.stewarthardy.co.uk/product/tods-assembly-download/Snow, and maybe other April surprises - in this week’s podcast, available now to stream or download via the Media tab at exilefm.com for one week from 6/4/21, with:
1. Si Barron - Singing Lovely Nancy
2. John Kennedy - Reels: Snow In April/Craig's Crossroads
3. Ben Lennon and Tony O'Connell - Murphy's/The Smoky Chimney
4. Bróna Mcvittie - A Pity Beyond All Telling
5. Harbottle & Jonas - Black Is The Colour
6. Robbie Greig Music - Blàr Inbhir Lòchaidh
7. Maurice O’Keeffe - Molly Morrissey's/Tom Billy’s
8. Bryan O'Leary Music & Mikey O'Connor - Boat to Bofin/Tom Billy's Waltz
9. Sliabh Notes - Polkas Medley: John Collins’ Fancy/Eileen’s Polka/Ned Kelly’s Polka
10. The Lomond Ceilidh BAND - Marches
11. Stewart Hardy Music - White Jock
12. Jim Eldon - Queen Of Tavendor
13. Johnny Handle - Alwinton Show
14. David Faulkner & Steve Turner - The Auld Goodman/Any Second Now
Also on Mixcloud at www.mixcloud.com/WilWalker