Second-year Music Performance Scholar reading Sport and Exercise Sciences, flautist Heather Moss, runs the new FolkShop group, an extra-curricular ensemble exploring folk music, her area of speciality. Here, Heather reflects on what sounds like an exhaustively busy summer…!
My crazy, folk-infused summer began with attending a tutor training weekend for Sidmouth Folk Festival which involved learning lots of new tunes and learning the best ways to teach tunes/ folk music to children.
I then stewarded, working at the box office at Ely Folk festival. Sidmouth Folk Festival then followed this, at this festival I was a core Tutor running a daily music workshop for 1.5 hours with the help from some other tutors. At the end of the week-long festival we concluded with the participants performing the tunes that we had taught them on-stage at the Manor Pavilion in Sidmouth.
This was then followed by another festival, called Folk East, where I stewarded at the Youth Tent. This involved my running a mixture of activities throughout the days and attending all the music sessions for youth people as a helper.
I then attended the Halsway Manor Advanced Youth Summer School, with many other likeminded individuals for a week. Where we were taught tunes and techniques, including how to set up our own PA system, how to teach children folk music and how to write our own folk tunes. This was run by Archie-Churchill Moss, Kate Griffin and Ford Collinson, all amazing musicians in the folk industry.
I then attended Towersey Folk Festival, where I ran my own youth workshop every day. This involved me teaching tunes and arrangements to a mixed-ability youth participant’s. This also concluded with a performance to the public.
I then ran a folk summer school for two days with Finn Collinson, for Bungay Folk Festival. This included running two full days of activities from 9am-5pm with 10 youth attendees who had never played folk music before. This was an amazing opportunity that I thoroughly enjoyed and would love to do again!
Heather Moss