The Folk Forecast: 26 April–2 May 2021
Spell Songs in Concert, Upton Folk Festival, more Singing with Nightingales and a May Dawn Dance to bring in the new season in style.
As April draws to a close, it’s almost time to bring in the May, and there are plenty of events this week to celebrate the changing of the seasons! There’s a strong theme of the natural world in the coming days, from Spell Songs in Concert at the Natural History Museum to Singing with Nightingales and a performance from Jenny Sturgeon, whose work explores our connection with the world around us.
On Thursday, Martin Green will be heading to Radio 4 to chat about the tradition of dancing at dawn, and on May Day itself he’ll be taking part in an online May Dawn Dance featuring Eliza Carthy, Maddy Prior, Boss Morris and Adie Baako. If you’ve never been to a May Dawn event before, this is the perfect chance to do so, as you can tune in from the comfort of your duvet!
This week’s playlist is themed around May too, with songs contributed by readers on social media — thank you for your suggestions!
I also caught up with Tom Besford English Folk Expo this week to find out more about their new Folk Talk Academy - more details below, or click here to watch the interview!
MONDAY 26 APRIL
Track Dogs - Live with Nettlebed Folk Club — 8pm BST
Firebrand Music / Nettlebed Folk Club
Track Dogs are known for their dynamic fusion of styles including folk, latin, Americana and bluegrass. The gig will be held on YouTube, with an optional Q&A session after the gig on Zoom.
Tickets £15 plus booking fee, with the option to pay more to support the artists.
TUESDAY 27 APRIL
Spell Songs in Concert for the Urban Nature Project — 8pm BST
The Lost Words Spell Songs/Folk by the Oak
Created as a musical accompaniment to The Lost Words and The Lost Spells books, this evening of nature-inspired song will raise funds for the Urban Nature Project. Authors Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris will join the Spell Singers and Jackie will be painting live to the music. The concert is being broadcast from the iconic Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum.
Free to view, with donations to the Urban Nature Project encouraged. If you donate £10 or more, you’ll receive VIP virtual access with exclusive bonus content.
THURSDAY 29 APRIL
Dancers At Dawn — 11.30am BST
BBC Radio 4
Martin Green explores the unlikely connections between Morris dancers and ravers to discover what drives these disparate groups out into the fields to dance at dawn. You can also join Martin for the May Dawn Dance with Live to Your Living Room on May Day itself — scroll down for details!
Free to tune in, either live or catch up on BBC Sounds.
Maddie Morris: A Year In Purgatory — 7pm BST
Maddie Morris on Zoom
Join Maddie Morris, Jake Madhatter, Sam Brown, Lilian Grace, Devika Kapoor, Maisie and Rosie Miles for a livestreamed concert in aid of Support after Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds.
Tickets £1.50 or donate more to support the charity.
Lady Maisery — 7.30pm BST
Onjam.tv
Join Lady Maisery for a special gig including brand-new material and old favourites, recorded live in lockdown. Tickets are valid for 14 days and 10% of sales will be donated to Sisters Uncut.
Tickets £14 standard, £25 families, with options to pay a bit more or less depending on your circumstances.
Iona Fyfe — 8pm BST
Uxbridge Folk Club
Aberdeenshire folk singer Iona Fyfe has become one of Scotland’s finest young ballad singers, rooted deeply in the singing traditions of the North East of Scotland. Winner of Scots Singer of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2018, Iona has been described as “one of the best Scotland has to offer.” (Global-Music.de)
Free to join but donations encouraged.
Sage Sessions — 8.30pm BST
Sage Gateshead on Facebook and YouTube
Enjoy three short solo performances filmed in unusual locations in and around Sage Gateshead. Performing are Anna Hughes, Georgia May and TOMMY, three singer-songwriters and instrumentalists based in the North East. Each will perform self-penned songs rooted in the classic sounds of folk and soul, with a fresh twist reflecting the present day. Artists will be available online to do a Q&A with audience members in the chat during the stream.
Free to view
FRIDAY 30 APRIL
Upton Folk Festival — Various events from 30 April to 3 May
Upton Folk Festival on Zoom
Upton Folk Festival are going online this year, with ceilidhs, storytelling, sessions, morris and evening concerts. The line-up includes Jackie Oates and John Spiers, Damien Barber, Sarah Matthews and Doug Eunson, Jo Freya, Phoebe Rees, Rosie Hood, Matt Quinn, Pat Smith and Ned Clamp, Ben Robertson, Jim Magaeen and Graeme Knights. Events will be held on Zoom - register to get Zoom links here.
Free to attend, but donations encouraged to the festival - details on the website.
TEYR: Estren Album Launch Party — 7pm BST
TEYR
Join TEYR plus master of ceremonies Josh Middleton for an online party to celebrate the release of Estren. The event will feature live performances, featured guests from the album and video premieres, all streamed direct to you.
Free to view
Edinburgh Tradfest — 7.30pm onwards
Edinburgh Tradfest
This year, Edinburgh Tradfest is going online. It all kicks off on 30th April with a choice of two events: a storytelling session at 7.30pm, and ‘Shetland Springs’ at 8pm, featuring four great fiddlers: Margaret Robertson, Chris Stout, Ross Couper and Catriona Macdonald.
Storytelling session pay what you can; Shetland Springs from £10.
Fay Hield — 8.50pm BST
Folk at the Grove
Fay Hield is a singer who seems to have been born knowing how to carry a tune, but with the rarer gift of knowing how to go straight to the heart of a song. She’ll be performing for Folk at the Grove this Friday - tune in on their Facebook page.
Free to view, with donations encouraged to the tip jar.
SATURDAY 1 MAY
May Dawn Dance* — 5.30am BST
Live to Your Living Room with Lepus Productions & Oxford Contemporary Music
Celebrate the tradition of bringing in the May without even having to leave home! Featuring Martin Green (of Lau), Eliza Carthy, Maddy Prior, Ghanaian dancer Adie Baako and the Mighty Boss Morris, this is a unique opportunity to come together with folkies far and wide to mark the changing of the seasons with song, dance and merriment.
Tickets pay what you feel, suggested £3
Jaquie Daniels - Online album release party — 7pm BST
Jaquie Daniels - tickets on Eventbrite
Come and hear folk/acoustic singer-songwriter Jaquie Daniels perform live on Zoom, playing tracks from her latest release Love and Harmony Combine. The album is dedicated to her late mother and features the three singles The Dancing Flames, Round the Clock and The Emotional Winds of Change.
Tickets £5 per household.
Jenny Sturgeon* — 8pm BST
Live to Your Living Room
Jenny Sturgeon is a singer-songwriter “who brings together the old and new with a rare skill” (R2 Magazine). Jenny’s music is rich with imagery and her songs are bound together by common threads of folklore, nature and the connection people have with the wild. Her latest album, The Living Mountain, has gone down a storm, and this is a great opportunity to hear her play live.
Tickets £15, with options to pay a bit more or less depending on your circumstances.
Christy Moore — 8pm BST
National Concert Hall Dublin
Christy Moore has played an integral role in the evolution of music in Ireland. Aside from his long and productive solo career, he is a founding member of the iconic bands Planxty and Moving Hearts. His songs have travelled around the world, resonating with powerfully relatable stories of the human condition.
Tickets €16.50 (approx £14.50), access to the stream lasts for 48 hours.
Singing with Nightingales: Dawn Chorus — 11pm BST
The Nest Collective on YouTube
Join The Nest Collective online from 11pm on 1st May for a spoken-word journey, hosted by Sam Lee, through some of the finest poems and writings celebrating the nightingale, the wonder of birds and the natural world. This long-form broadcast will then drift into pure nightingale song through the night and, as the birds rise, will culminate in the dawn chorus itself, finishing at 6am on Sunday 2nd May.
Free to tune in, but donations encouraged to The Nest Collective.
SUNDAY 2 MAY
EFDSS: The Young Folk Club — 4pm GMT
English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS)
A chance for young people aged 14-21 to celebrate May Day with a focus on folk dancing! Folk dancers, musicians and educators Grace Smith and Ben Moss will teach solo clog and morris dances for you to join in with at home, suitable for all levels of experience.
Free to attend, but you need to pre-book your place.
Jez Lowe — 8pm BST
Readifolk
Join renowned singer-songwriter Jez Lowe for an evening of song-sharing and Geordie wit, hosted by Readifolk.
Free to view, but donations or merch purchases encouraged - email colin@readifolk.org.uk to be added to the mailing list.
Regular events
‘Almost Acoustic’ with Eliza Carthy on Radio Scarborough - Mondays at 8pm. The show is also repeated through the week, so you can catch up if you miss it.
Afternoon Tea with Paul Walker and Karen Pfeiffer - Concerts are held on Fridays at 4pm on Facebook.
Winter Wilson Live from the Lounge - Concerts are held on Thursdays at 8.15pm on Facebook.
Jack Hogsden’s Kitchen Sessions - Concerts are held on Saturdays at 7.30pm on Facebook. All money raised goes to Don’t Stop the Music.
Paul McKenna - Paul regularly plays Facebook gigs on Saturday nights at 8pm.
Tim Edey’s Sleeping Tunes - Concerts are held on Saturdays at 9pm on Facebook.
Will Pound’s Sunday concerts - Concerts are held on Sundays at 11.30am on Facebook.
Social Dancing with Lisa Heywood - Regular chances to get together and learn about folk dances from the UK and further afield.
Honey and the Bear - Concerts are held on Sundays at 7pm on Facebook.
Cara Dillon: This Woman’s Work on BBC Radio Ulster - This radio series is being broadcast on Sundays at 4pm, and you can catch up on past episodes now.
The Isolation Pub Sessions - John Spiers hosts monthly sessions on his Facebook page, and you can submit recordings of you playing if you’d like to join in!
‘Folk from the Boat’ - a YouTube series exploring traditional songs and tunes with Anna Tam, as she travels through Britain’s waterways on her canal boat.
English Folk Expo: Folk Talk Academy*
This week, English Folk Expo have launched Folk Talk Academy, a new online learning hub for artists and music industry professionals. It includes a programme of lectures and webinars on all aspects of the music industry, as well as essays, short presentations and other resources (even a students’ union!). This will be a really useful resource to allow anyone working in the folk scene (or the wider music industry) to develop and diversify their range of skills. I caught up with Tom to find out more about the new platform, and you can watch the interview in the video above!
This week’s playlist
With May Day coming up, this week’s playlist is a special May-themed edition. Thanks to everyone on social media who suggested tracks to include!
Record of the week
Fitting with this week’s May Day theme, Record of the Week is Till April is Dead by Lisa Knapp, which was recommended by Rob on Twitter when I was on the lookout for music for the playlist. Taking traditional songs and reimagining them as multi-layered soundscapes, Till April is Dead is a mesmerising and truly original tribute to the changing of the seasons.
Keep up to date - find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
The Folk Forecast is created for artists, for audiences and for the UK folk scene. All information is correct to the best of our knowledge. If you have queries about the events listed, please contact the artists or promoters. If you have any suggestions for inclusion in future newsletters, please email TheFolkForecast@gmail.com. We may not be able to include absolutely everything, but we’re interested in UK folk events with a broad appeal, and would particularly welcome suggestions from Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The Folk Forecast is compiled by one person, so please bear with me if I can’t get back to you right away.
* Alongside The Folk Forecast, I’m associated with other organisations on the folk scene, including Folk on Foot, Fancourt Music, Live to Your Living Room and English Folk Expo. Events where I have some involvement with the promoter or agency are marked with a star. Although I have other affiliations, I strive to be fair and inclusive and tell you about anything I find that I think you’ll enjoy!