Post by traditional Music Forum on Sept 9, 2021 10:05:25 GMT
A weekly two minute catch-up for members from the
TMF Director's desk
These are some of the things that have caught my attention this week.
A couple of people have been in touch asking about the post Level 0 rules. A conversation with a Scottish Government chap gave us this: Facemasks indoors unless eating or drinking (e.g. you can watch a band a drink a pint.)
mask should be on if not drinking; performers can perform without a mask as long as they are 1 meter apart (e.g. orchestral musicians need masks if they're close together; wind instruments would need to be 1 meter apart.)
Many of you will be familiar with this in any case as more gigs start to open up. Mull of Kintyre Festival this weekend, Piping Live!, Under the Canvas and the Edinburgh International Festival (with a strong folk line-up) already under way. Skipinnish and Knockengorroch announcing gigs. It seems like the nightmare could be coming to an end. Caution still required though...
I've got a ceilidh coming up next week, first one since the end of January last year. The band had its first get together since then last weekend and one of the tunes we played has been stuck in my brain since, a great Willie Ross classic march, Captain Norman Orr Ewing. Nice version here, courtesy of Biggar Accordion and Fiddle Club.
David Culbert from Help Musicians Scotland, whom I've mentioned a couple of times before, has sent a pdf with links to the various sources of support for well being that he referred to in his talk a couple of weeks ago. Ping me an email if you'd like me to forward it.
Scottish Culture and Traditions (SC&T) in Aberdeen has been running summer events and one-offs for young musicians for some time now. For the first time from this autumn they'll be making the most of the turn to online provision by running regular weekly online classes for young people wherever they may be. An impressive line up of tutors includes Signy Jakobsdottir, Innes Watson, and Patsy Reid. It sounds brilliant. A wee video with all the details here. A few ideas for other teaching organisations to pick up on?
Still on youth provision, Children in Scotland has opened a new fund called Access All Arts which aims to provide funding to enable young people with additional support needs or a disability to take part in creative activities (not just music). Deadline is Monday 13 September.
We wrapped up our series of neurodiversity workshops with Linda Rankin this week. These have had a good response, with participants from all over Scotland, and, thanks to the reach of our monthly newsletter, the US, India and Turkey as well. One thing it's made us think about is the future of face to face workshops. As a national organisation I've always felt uneasy about the TMF running workshops in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness only and expecting people to travel. Online gives us the option of truly national (and international) reach.
The TMF's Directory of Musicians playlist (#3) is now up on Spotify with a selection of tunes from artists on the Directory.
I was very sorry to hear of the passing of Moira Stewart from Portsoy. Moira had been active in the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival for many years and was instrumental in getting the Festival's Ballads and Bairns project up and running. Through YMI Ballads and Bairns involved all the primary schools in the Banff cluster in songwriting and traditional song and was a fixture in the calendar for a number of years in the noughties for folk like Rod Paterson, Christine Kydd, Norman Chalmers and myself among others. Moira was quietly effective in her essential role and will be a great loss.
No bulletin next week as I'm taking a few days off to walk part of the Speyside Way. Normal service will be resumed two weeks from now.
All the best
DF
David Francis is Director of the Traditional Music Forum
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