Melvin Samuel is a qualified tai chi instructor with the East-West Taoist Association and will be leading the highly successful Whitby Folk Week tai chi workshops again this year. The workshops have been developed to give absolute beginners an opportunity to try tai chi in a supportive environment. They will also give more experienced practitioners the opportunity to practice in a group and to get insights into the Lee Family system. The workshops will explore the Tai Chi Form, Taoist Breathing, Taoist Yoga, Tai Chi Dance and Silk and internal energy work.

Ian is a researcher, singer, musician and festival director, who champions the local traditions of the Pennines and NE Scotland. Since 1969 he has conducted extensive fieldwork into singing traditions of South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, especially Christmas carolling. Recent research has focused on the traditional culture of Aberdeenshire, including singing and instrumental traditions. Ian is an emeritus professor at the University of Aberdeen’s Elphinstone Institute and has written and edited several books on folk and traditional music. When in Derbyshire he plays melodeon for Winster Morris.

Jim Causley is a folk-singer, award winning songwriter, musician, proud Devonian and all-round entertainer. He grew up in a wassailing village not far from Sidmouth Folk Festival and sang with Wren Music before heading to Newcastle University to study on their brand new degree course in Folk & Traditional Music. He rose to prominence singing with The Devil’s Interval and Mawkin:Causley as well as touring with Waterson:Carthy and David Rotheray. In recent years his work has focused on his musical settings of poems by his relative Charles Causley, penning his own songs and reviving lost gems from his home county.

John  Conolly is a singer/songwriter who has based his style firmly in the English Folk tradition, and songs like his classic” Fiddlers’ Green” and “The Trawling Trade” have earned him a welcome at major Folk and Maritime Festivals all over the world. Many of his songs have a tang of the sea, reflecting the lives and labours of the fisherfolk in his home town of Grimsby. That’s not the full story, however, and a typical John Conolly performance will cover a wide range of subject-matter – and will always include a generous dollop of the “saucy-seaside-postcard” humour he delights in!

Cream Tees are an award-winning folk band based in Barnard Castle, County Durham. With an ever-evolving membership of young musicians, since their inception in 2011 the group have breathed new life into forgotten folk music first collected in the Teesdale area over the last 150 years by collectors including Ralph Vaughn Williams, Alan Lomax, Joan Littlewood & Ewan MacColl; as well as creating original compositions in the form of The Rooted Suite, gaining incredible encouragement, ideas and support from some of the best folk musicians on the UK folk scene in the process. With past & current members of the band a part of Folkestra and EFDSS’ National Youth Folk Ensemble, and ex-members recently graduating from Newcastle University’s Folk & Traditional Music BA – the band has made a mark on the musical tastes and aspirations of the young people involved.

Cream Tees are no strangers to Whitby, having first appeared at Hartlepool, Towersey and Sidmouth Folk Festival over the last 8 years. Whitby Folk Week is a favourite for the band, so much so it’s officially become their home festival!

Dan Quinn has appeared at the festival since 1980, playing in the ceilidh bands Flowers and Frolics, Gas Mark 5, Used Notes, The Watch and The Dan Quinn All-Stars and singing  with Will Duke. He now sings in a duo with Mike Bettison and plays in the bands Duck Soup and The Pigeon Swing. He comperes the traditional nights at the festival and continues his ongoing project to watch every film ever made.

Dave Townsend has been performing, teaching and researching music for more than thirty years. From a background in literary research and publishing he plunged into a full-time musical career in 1982 with various groups, notably The Mellstock Band. He evolved a formidable technique on English Concertina, carrying it into technical realms scarcely explored since the classical virtuosi of the nineteenth century and bringing new sounds to traditional music. He has toured across Britain, Europe, Africa and the U. S. A., appearing at festivals and concerts and leading workshops. He’s also appeared in theatre, film, and TV. He has recorded numerous albums, and published books, most recently The Sharp Collection, bringing together all the social dance tunes collected by Sharp.

Derek Schofield is a writer, researcher, occasional singer and, at Whitby Folk Week, an MC. He was the editor of English Dance & Song magazine (2005-2015) and is now the reviews editor of the Folk Music Journal. He has written three books, on the histories of the Sidmouth and Towersey festivals and All Step Up: The History of the Manley Morris Dancers. He is researching the history of the English folk dance revival.

Doc Rowe has been documenting British Cultural tradition for nearly sixty years using video, film and photography as well as audio. His unique collection of contemporary and historical material on the traditional culture of the British Isles and Ireland is now housed in Whitby A regular at Whitby Folk Week his sessions are both entertaining and inspiring featuring historic footage of performers and seasonal material from his collection.

Apart from writing and broadcasting broadcasts on aspects of folklore and tradition, his photographs are regularly published and a number of national exhibitions of his work

Based in the village of Goathland, nine miles from Whitby, the Goathland Plough Stots are the only team left in an area where almost every village once boasted a team. They are one of the five traditional sword dance teams with a written history which can be traced back to 1812 and through linked accounts back to c1756.  The striking kit is based upon the nineteenth century local political colours. The Plough Stots traditional time to dance is Plough Saturday in early January, so it is always a pleasure to dance in the balmy warmth of Whitby Folk Week.

Singer,guitarist and flute-player, he’s been in various bands (Iona, Dab Hand, Morgan Rattler, Roisin Ban), a few duos (with Dave Townsend, Brian Peters and Maggie Boyle) and in between, a soloist. He went full-time in 1979 – as the news of Mrs Thatcher’s election victory in May that year came through he was driving a battered Ford Transit down an autobahn in Germany in a futile attempt to escape. He’s mainly interested in traditional music but has dabbled on the fringes of songwriting with outlandish projects like his settings of John Clare and my Zen album Mumonkan. He’s also written a book about Whitby Folk Week, called “Around The Blooming Heather”.

Originally from Devon, Graham has been described as having one of the finest voices in the tradition. His work as an unaccompanied solo performer has enabled him to explore ‘song’ with a greater freedom to ‘sing the words’ rather than to just ‘sing the song’.

“Every word, every note and every rest can enhance or destroy the narrative in the song. Not just with the ‘accepted ballads’, but of all songs. What I try to do is to reinject the poetry of the words back into the song and help people to appreciate why these songs were first written”.

“The male equivalent to June Tabor” : Green Man Review USA

“He succeeds in moving people with his singing – a formidable power” : Ray Fisher

“A wonderful journey of song by one of the best voices in the tradition” : Baccapipes Folk Club, Keighley.

Angela Topping is a seasoned poet and workshop leader. Her ninth poetry book Earwig Country is recently published by Valley Press. Her workshops include original creative exercises to help you write new poems. Each session is freestanding, and the final one includes a readaround and a short guest spot from Angela. She has been coming to Whitby Folk Week for 18 years, and always finds it inspiring. Angela regularly appears at literary and poetry festivals. She is a former Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in Wales. She has also written a book on the poet John Clare. 

Brian Peters is a Whitby regular, one of the folk scene’s great all-rounders, and a well-travelled international performer. He’s compelling singer, a top player of the anglo concertina and melodeon, and a skilled guitarist. Brian’s core repertoire lies firmly in the English tradition, with Child ballads a speciality, but he has wide-ranging tastes so expect the unexpected – if you’re lucky he might even bring his banjo. He likes to engage his audiences with choruses and humour, but he’s a serious researcher too, and over the lockdown period has given several well-received online lectures. He’s made CDs aplenty.

 

 

Carol Dawson and Steve Le Voguer have been directing the Whitby Folk Orchestra for quite a while now. They are almost getting the hang of it! Professional musicians and music educators in their own right, they are sought after to deliver workshops and concerts all over the country. They are both founders of the Folklincs organisation based in North Lincolnshire whose aim is to encourage young people to play and sing folk music

One of the top ceilidh bands in the North West, Albireo play for parties, fund-raisers, weddings, dances and festivals. The band’s repertoire draws on the English, Irish, Scottish and American traditions, along with self-penned tunes and others from further afield.

English fiddler and singer Bryony Griffith and melodeon player and dancer Will Hampson began performing together in their early teens in the ceilidh band Bedlam and were both members of the BBC folk award-winning ‘Demon Barbers’. Much of their experience comes from their involvement in the English traditional dance scene as members of Dogrose Morris and The Newcastle Kingsmen.

Aside from performing, they have a vast knowledge and experience of folk music in education and will again be running the daily Yoof Club workshops, (age 10-18) where chosen festival artists and dance teams pass on their skills to the participants, culminating in a performance in the Yoof & Children’s showcase at the end of the week.

Whitby Folk Week patrons Melrose Quartet are Nancy Kerr, James Fagan, Jess & Richard Arrowsmith. Their rich repertoire combines traditional songs and tunes with more recent material that merges seamlessly into the folk canon. They deliver a capella and accompanied song in their strong and inimitable style, alongside dance-informed instrumental sets that both define and re-invigorate social dance rhythms from Britain and beyond. Bouzouki, box, two fiddles and four voices in sublime conjunction.

Alistair continues to find inspiration from the traditional music, landscape and the people of Northumberland and the Borders. Alongside the older melodies unearthed from the personal tune books of musicians dating back as far as the 1600s and the huge wealth of music he learnt from his great mentors, Joe Hutton, Will Taylor and Will Atkinson, his own compositions build on those traditions. Anderson’s latest CD “Hethpool Linn” received good reviews including this comment from Bright Young Folk “It’s a double CD…an absolute gem to have in your collection. Despite recently turning 75 Anderson proves once again that he is one of those geniuses that happen a few times in each generation, he will forever be a great inspiration to anyone who comes close to this genre.”

Expect anything from great music, funny storys to music hall hilarity.