National Folk Festival 2012

National Folk Festival 2012, a set on Flickr.

Great Easter weekend at the National Folk Festival. Three concerts, one fiddle workshop sessions until the wee hours and so many acts to see! Need a week to recover now!

 

Session in Portsmouth UK

I was staying with friends in Havant, UK and they took me to a local Celtic music session at a tavern in King Street, Portsmouth.

The first thing I noticed as I pulled out my pochette (travel violin) is that in fact none of the other fiddles were standard violins either!

A group of unusual fiddles

in addition to the viol-like fiddle, the top-corner violin and the guitar-shaped violin, there was my pochette and a baroque-style violin (not pictured).

After introductions I quickly found that I had about 60-70 percent tunes in common and quickly settled in for a very enjoyable session.

Session at King Street Tavern, Portsmouth

Here is another view of the musicians

Session at King Street Tavern, Portsmouth

I was invited to join them at a session in Winchester a few days hence, but sadly, my plans led me in another direction. I had a great night and our friends enjoyed the music too

 

New collaboration coming soon

Merry Christmas season!

I am working on a new collaboration on YouTube with Chansherly – watch this space. In the meantime, here is one I did earlier. I hope to write a bit more regularly in 2011 – this year has been a busy one and I’ve neglected the blogs a bit. So look on this as a renewal ahead of the new year:-)

Cheers
Jerry

 

Griffin Stoller with ‘Catharsis’

Fourteen year old Griffin Soller is one to watch – Here he is playing the celtic tune ‘Catharsis’

Cheers
Jerry