Expect Music, Song, Dance, Storytelling and Talks across Stowmarket! There will be lots of free events including chances to have a go at dance, joining in sessions, trying out traditional ‘folk’™ instruments as well as lots of ticketed concerts and talks running throughout the day and into the evening.
The News…
The plans for September’s Traditional Music Day are coming along nicely. We are delighted to be working with the team at The John Peel Centre for Creative Arts who are acting on our behalf for box office requirements. Tickets are on sale from 9am 23rd June at an Early Bird price until 30th June and there after new prices will be put in place.
If you requested your ticket to be rolled over from last year’s event, then you should have been contacted recently about this. If you haven’t been, PLEASE GET IN TOUCH ASAP – info@eatmt.org.uk.
Friends of EATMT receive a discount of tickets and you also should have received information about this.
BOOK EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT!
The Traditional Music Day pages on the website are gradually being updated. If there is something specific you need to know before booking your tickets, please email info@eatmt.org.uk.
New…Articles
Milkmaid Molly Need YOU! A plea to local musicians from Jan Robinson.
Lennie Whiting A tribute to the Suffolk Stepdancer and Singer has been written by friend and musician Stephen Matthews and this article features in our Musician Profiles section on the website.
As ever, we welcome articles/contributions to the website. Do get in touch.
New | Faye Gosling, Alfie Webber and Sam Stockman
We have been delighted to have local sculptor, singer, educator and arts administrator Faye lend a helping hand with our social media postings over the last few months thanks to support from Mid Suffolk District Council. She will be helping in the office too over the coming months as we build up to our summer of events.
Faye is also a recipient of this year’s Alan Surtees Trust Fund “ an organisation that supports young performers whose work is rooted in Traditional Music and Arts. Faye has been supported to research, develop and deliver a pilot workshop to teach East Anglian folk traditions in schools on behalf of EATMT.
We have also welcomed Alfie and Sam on board who are helping with the growing amount of digital work. Alfie has spent time with us as part of Inspire Suffolk‘s Prince’™s Trust Programme working on the back end of the EATMT website as well as helping move our book keeping systems into the modern world! Sam is working on the Vaughan Williams’™ Folk project updating resources for the website. The benefits these three young folk contribute to the Trust are huge!
New | Dulcimers galore!
Volunteer Alan Helsdon has stumbled across not 1 but 3 what we think are East Anglian made Dulcimers and he has managed to persuade Norfolk player, restorer and maker Richard Blake to ensure they are returned to a good playing state before heading to HQ where they will be added to our hire bank of instruments. Alan is currently gathering their histories and once completed, we’™ll share the details of these finds further.
Local player Sue Carlton has also found a temporary player for one of her Dulcimers made by Richard in Norfolk. Before long, we could have a few more players of this wonderful instrument on the music scene. Watch this space!
New | Jig Doll Competition
Doreen West is running a Jig Doll Workshop at this year’™s Stepdance Day in Worlingworth and there will be a Jig Doll competition taking place alongside the Stepdance competitions. Fiona Davies is currently creating a trophy for this new competition. Patron Gloria Buckley is busy creating her wonderful raffle for the day and Patron Katie Howson is helping collate photographs for an exhibition to be shown in the community centre. We also have a small but perfectly formed working party helping pull the event into shape. Read more…
New | Instruments for sale
We have a few more instruments for sale including a lovely Dino Baffetti melodeon and a 12 string guitar. Visit the sales page.
New | Ruddock Bursary Recipients
4 young musicians from across the East Anglian region benefit from our Ruddock Bursaries this year.
14 year old Dax has been loaned a George Case concertina to trial with thanks to Mike Acott Concertina Restorer and 20 year old Lillith has been loaned one of Bernard Hawkins’™ donated accordions for the year. In addition, the Burwell Bash has two Bursary recipients joining them in August for their summer music school“ teenager Isaac Dalglish and 22 year old music student Emma Robinson will join this lovely event.
New…Stowmarket Culture Group
EATMT is now a member of the Stowmarket Culture Group which meets once a month.
The Stowmarket Culture Group is made up of representatives from key cultural organisations to ensure the cultural sector thrives through a more collaborative approach. The group has a shared ambition to bring higher levels of cultural participation and helps manage strategic programmes and projects. It is part of a larger “Stowmarket Vision – What’s Next For Stowmarket” which is responsible for some exciting new artistic and cultural changes in the town.
Event Reports
Alan Helsdon, Shirley Harry and Alex Bartholomew enjoyed an afternoon out in Bungay at the end of March playing and singing a selection of Vaughan Williams’™ Folk song arrangements collected in Suffolk and Norfolk. Listen to the performance on our YouTube page and read the report of the event here.
What a wonderful first event this Sunday Afternoon of Music Song and Dance was. We are delighted to report that we had a full house. We welcomed old and new friends and our local performers really did do us all proud. Wonderful singing, dancing, monologues, jig doll dancing and music from everyone involved entertained the crowd. Read our report HERE.
The sun shone all day on this Workshop day and Wingfield was filled with the sweet musical tones of voice, fiddles, melodeons, whistles, concertinas and more.
A day of workshops was followed by an amazing evening Tutor Concert. Read about the day HERE.
Vaughan Williams’ Folk
Our young musicians are creating some lovely work using their own arrangements and writing their own work inspired by the songs collected by Vaughan Williams and working together, sharing ideas. We can’t wait to hear the finished programme of works which will be showcased at FolkEast on Friday 18th August and again at Traditional Music Day at the John Peel Centre for Creative Arts on Saturday 2nd September. Before that they have a weekend together in July and a full day at Blaxhall at the start of FolkEast to look forward to. There are short biogs now appearing on the Vaughan Williams’ Folk webpages – to find out more about these musicians read on HERE.
Schools and Community work across the region has been taking place led by a varied group of talented musicians and educators and Jake Lee Savage has been to some of those sessions to record and film. Every group involved will have produced film or audio which Jake has already started to edit and create a final film which will also be shown at FolkEast and Traditional Music Day. This will eventually be available to view online via the EATMT website. Do visit these SCHOOLS RESOURCES pages to see what song tunes have been worked on so far, where and with whom.
We are delighted to have provided far more opportunities for schools and community groups than we initially received funding for. We were keen to showcase the variety of arrangements and organisations keen to be involved in this project such has been the interest.
The county resources pages are also being slowly updated too. Eventually, the aim is to have information including relevant links for all of Vaughan Williams’ East Anglian collected song tunes with background details. There are over 400 to include on the website!
Jake Lee Savage ran 2 podcast and film training workshops in April. One for young school aged children and one open for the general public. Two of our workshop attendees then tried out their newly found skills at our More than Melodeons event in May. Jake also produced a short film of that day which you can watch HERE.
Project co-ordinator Nicky Stockman is now busy preparing for the final three months of the project.
Forthcoming Events
EATMT have a stall on Saturday 24th June at Bury Folk Festival which takes place in the Walled Garden at Nowton Park. Do come and say hello!
We’ll be joining other local organisations at Red Gables on Sunday 2nd July from 10am-4pm with a stall as part of Stowmarket’s popular Food and Drink Festival. We’ve been involved in contributing to the live music that will be on site. It’s a wonderful event with the added bonus of food and drink stalls!
Fiona Davies will be showcasing Norfolk Stepdancing with Chris Holderness accompanying on Saturday 15th July at Strumpshaw Tree Fair.
This event moves back to Suffolk this year to celebrate the lives of our Stepdancers who we have lost and to celebrate this wonderful tradition in one of the most famous pubs in Suffolk known for its Stepdancers.
Our thanks to Fiona Davies, Doreen West, Janet Abbot, Lindsay Want, Gloria Buckley and Katie Howson for contributing to this day and to Instep Research Team for supporting our Stepdancing events this year.
Friday 18th-Sunday 20th August
Our regular stall will be in the Instrumental Area. The first of our Showcase Concerts as part of the Vaughan Williams’™ Folk project takes place on the Friday with a film showing of the year’s work also taking place and Stepdance workshops and competition co-ordinated by Fiona Davies.
Expect Music, Song, Dance, Storytelling and Talks across Stowmarket! There will be lots of free events including chances to have a go at dance, joining in sessions, trying out traditional folk instruments as well as lots of ticketed concerts and talks running throughout the day and into the evening.
Following the success of April’s first Sunday Afternoon of Music, Song and Dance, volunteer Jan Robinson is co-ordinating the second afternoon this time in Walsham le Willows’ Memorial Hall on Sunday 29th October from 2pm-4pm.
This event has been funded by local councillor Jessica Fleming’s locality budget funding at Suffolk County Council.
These events have been supported by Stowmarket Town Council, Mid Suffolk District Council, Suffolk County Council, Instep Research Team and The National Lottery Heritage Fund. We have also got several small working parties consisting of mostly volunteers helping to get these events out across the region and into local communities. Some of these events are free events, some ticketed but all take considerable time and energy to pull together. Please show your support: come along and listen, sing, dance or play!
Out and about in the region
Within our own EVENTS page, we have a link to a page for other organisations events which you can visit HERE.
Of note, we have news of 1 new session in Cambridgeshire, 1 planned new session in Norfolk and a series of Winter Concerts at the Geldeston Locks in Suffolk. There is also a plea from Essex Folk News…
For more details about these additional events please visit HERE.
Support EATMT
Can you put up a poster?
We are particularly interested to hear from you if you can put up a poster in your village if you’re local. We can post out A4 laminated posters to you if you think you can help. Please get in touch!
First Aid?
If you are planning to come along to any of our events and you are First Aid Trained, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re interested in helping and would like to take part in some first aid training, we’d also love to hear from you!
You can support EATMT in a number of other ways:
VOLUNTEER at events or in the office,
BECOME A FRIEND – Join our Friends’ Membership Scheme
SHOP for our publications,
BUY TICKETS for our EVENTS
THANKS
As ever, thanks go to the regular team of volunteers who provide a variety of support to EATMT. We’re delighted to welcome new members into the volunteer team over the last few months we are really grateful to everyone who steps in and up to the challenges!
We are also grateful to the following regular funders for helping us run events and projects:
Best wishes, Alex and the EATMT Team