Scandinavian Music, Old Time Music, Flatfoot dancing and Shanty Singing

Dancing on Mondays, Playing Tunes on Wednesdays and Singing on Thursday

Hi Everyone and welcome to February’s newsletter.

We’ve got lots of good things coming up and I’m excited to write to you all.  There’s Esbjorn’s Scandinavian Music course starting next Wednesday at Bacon Street, A new term of flatfooting starting on Monday 29th February, Jane Rothfield and Nathan Bontrager are teaching one-off workshops on Old Time Fiddle and Backing Up Tunes in March and the Sea Shanty Choir just can’t stop singing!

Scandinavian Music – next Wednesday

First up Esbjorn’s back to teach another six week course on playing Scandinavian Music.  The course will be happening at 14 Bacon Street off Brick Lane and will culminate in a performance at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green on St George’s Day Saturday 23rd April.  Esbjorn’s promised to teach everyone some Engelska (literally “English Tunes”) just for the occasion.

Bacon Street is just such a beautiful place to meet up and play music and everyone who’s been there has really enjoyed it.  Thanks so much to Jess and Ollie for having us there.  Talking of which it is the last week of the Old Time Course tonight and we’re going to have a massive session afterwards and all play all the tunes we’ve learned so if you’re in the neighborhood at 8:30-ish come and say Hi!  If you play old time music bring an instrument and come on down.

Old Time Stuff – Monday night dancing and one-off workshops in March

If Scandianvian Music isn’t your thing then maybe you’re up for coming and joining us for some flatfoot dancing on a Monday nights at the Round Chapel?  Alice’s course is going great, the numbers are building up and everyone’s starting to look really good at dancing.  There’s plenty of dancing in the pub afterwards too and it’s been feeling like a really great scene.  This term is also going to culminate in a performance at the Museum of Childhood on Saturday 23rd April so it’ll be a chance for everyone to show off their moves or maybe do a routine like this one we did last year.

We’re also extremely honoured to have Jane Rothfield and Nathan Bontrager from the USA coming to teach a couple off one-off workshop for us at the Harrison pub on Sunday 20th March.  There’s be a workshop on Old Time Fiddle playing followed by one on Backing Up Tunes.  Nathan plays Cello which is an unusual instrument to find in old time music but has promised to share his secrets of how to make your instrument work so if you feel you’ve been sitting in the corner with your ukulele or accordion at these sessions for too long come and hang out with Nathan.

It’s also the Harrison Old Time Session that evening which will be hosted by Jane, Nathan and Me so we’ll all get to hang out and eat a roast dinner and play lots of tunes afterwards too.

Trad Academy Shanty Choir News

The Sea Shanty Choir has another busy year ahead and we’re all really excited about it. We’re thrilled to have been invited to the Baltic Shanty Festival in Finland, which will be a wonderful opportunity to share songs and experiences with other shanty enthusiasts.
Big thanks to those who came along to our disco ceilidh fundraiser last month, we’re well on our way to getting everyone in the choir across the sea to the festival. We’re also really excited to be working with James Burke-Dunsmore on a retelling of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner which will be performed at Wilton’s Music Hall in July.  Watch this space for more details!

The choir is working hard on preparing for performances which means there aren’t any open sessions for new members planned right now but if you want to know when the next one is sign up to the mailing list (except you probably already have because you’re reading this already).

Big thank you to Pete, Ellie, Anna, Kate, Duncan, Emma and everyone else who gives so much of their time to helping keep the choir going and organising the trip to Finland! It’s going to be really great!

Check the dates

Right, that’s it for me for now.  I’ve played it dangerous this time by putting lots of dates into the text in this e-mail so apologies if I’ve got any of them wrong but hopefully this time I got the subject line right.

As usual check the website for the definitive dates of things and I’ve copied and pasted stuff from there below.  Both the flatfooting and Scandi course are having a couple of weeks break for Easter so make sure you check your dates!

See you all real soon I hope!

Ed