Kadril
and the Wildboar Label - a 'History lesson' on the current Flemish Folk scene
Kadril is the longest going innovative Flemish folk rock band, existing already
for a quarter of a century. The Wildboar label is much younger - but has a
very strong influence on the whole folk music scene of Belgium. Christian
Moll talked on the small island of Tatihou in the Normandie with Erwin Libbrecht
and Eva De Roovers about these institutions.
WIN CDS of KADRIL and SHANTALLA!!!
Belgium - Flemish folk rock band and innovative Flemish record label
More than one Donegal German: The Frankie
Kennedy Winter School
Continental Celts, Part VI. The Winter School was set up to commemorate
flute player, teacher and member of Altan Frankie Kennedy who died in September
1994. Sean Laffey attended the first three and a half days of the school from
Friday 28 December to Monday 31, neatly avoiding the huge influx of box players
on New Year's Eve and a hangover on New Year's Day! And he has met there -
plenty of Germans!
Ireland - Winter School for Irish Music 
Oskorri - Ambassadors of the Basque
language
30 years and still going strong. Due to main stream media most people
associate the Basque Country with terrorism and violent regionalism. Little
is known about the beauty of this region, the wealth of regional culture and
tradition and about the Basque language, one of the oldest languages in the
world. The band Oskorri has been an ambassador for folk music traditions from
the Basque country for 30 years now, and still today their live appearances
and CDs are innovative, fresh and recommended. Michael Moll found out more
when meeting the band at the Falun Folk Festival in Sweden.
Basque Country - the most important Basque folk band; Basque language etc.
Poland calling: An A to Z of What's happening
on the Polish folk scene
Albeit
there has been some form of folk scene here in Poland for a long time, in
reality it has only really come into existence over the last five to six years.
Obviously before, the folk scene was quite widespread, but in comparison to
what takes place in the rest of Europe, the last five years has seen a dynamic
boom in both bands and people interested in folk. Folk Infos on Agencies -
Bands - Competitions - Database - Festivals - Radio - Record Labels - Venues.
(Photo: Kapela Ze Wsi Warszawa)
Poland - overview over the folk scene
Learning Trad the Contemporary Way: MadforTrad's
CD-ROM Tutorials
Playing traditional music has always essentially been a matter of picking
up tunes by listening to and watching advanced musicians at "work". Not many
of us, however, have the chance of meeting great players at sessions in their
local pub, neither in Ireland nor elsewhere. Therefore, buíochas le Dia, for
all of those who are left to their own devices in terms of "trad", the Cork-based
company MadforTrad have jumped the bandwagon of mediamania and come up with
a set of instructional CD-ROMs for no less than 16 instruments. Erik Markgraf
and Tom Keller did the test...
Ireland - new way of learning trad
suffolk
& beyond (Folk in England) part II: Two in a Bar etc.
Plenty of Old Folkies for Christmas and the satire of a licening law prohibiting
sessions and sing-alongs. The year 2002 has started, and the good old
Pound Sterling is still there. Good Old England is still the same, as some
strange laws show - like the Two in a Bar one. Before coming
to such serious matters (that serious that they sound like being a bad joke),
Michael Moll looks back to Suffolk & beyond's December - Christmas time...
with Maddy Prior & Carnival Band, plenty of Christmas cards
and Maire Ni Chathasaigh & Chris Newman (Photo)
Series about Folk in England/Suffolk - feat. English & Irish concerts
and a strange English law
Dutch Folk Music - Prologue to a new FolkWorld
series
Last autumn the Netherlands had the honour of hosting the Womax fair of world
music. Many people hoped that finally some attention would be paid to Dutch
traditional music. However, this assumption proved to be false... Eelco Schilder
on the failure of the Womex to present Dutch music, and his reason to start
now a FolkWorld series, presenting Dutch folk music.
Start
of a new series about Dutch Folk Music
T:-)M's Night Shift: Klezmorim Going Downtown
Book reviews on Klezmer music. Tom Keller spent another series of nights
reading through books to find out about background and stories of folk music.
This time he was taken away by books on Klezmer music.
Klezmer book reviews
Scanfolk Part VI: What is Danish Folk Music?
Haugaard & Høirup on the folk mysteries of that small country. Officially,
last issue finished the Scanfolk series - but hey there we are with a sixth
part of the series, going back to Denmark, just to find some more out about
the mysteries of folk music and recent developments of this most Southern
Scandinavian country. And the word goes to Morten Alfred Høirup and Harald
Haugaard, one of the best music acts from Denmark, to talk about historical
cultural links of Denmark, folk music education, state sponsoring for folk
and more.
Folk in
Denmark - insight into the folk scene
3rd International Folk Festival Tilburg
- great start for the festival season 2002
In 2002 Christian Moll has had already for the third time the pleasure to
start his festival season already in january with the excellent festival of
Tilburg in the Netherlands. He saw in three of the 5 festival days plenty
of innovative folk music from all over Europe, experiencing plenty of new
and old favourites. The festival always has a focus on an instrument and a
country, this year it was the accordion and France. (Photo: Sarah Allen of
Flook)
The Netherlands - Live Review of a Festival of European folk music
World's Out of Tune (1): "Ground Zero"
in Song and Poetry
When the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center crumbled on September
11, 2001, the world really fell out of tune. But quiet the minstrels? No,
they were not. Great historical events have always been treated in ballads.
Thus, hundreds of 911 songs and poems have been written since. If it is true
that songs embody the vox populi, display attitudes, opinions, dreams and
aspirations of a people, one may uncover much more ambigious facets than the
official view and the publicized opinion pretend. But instead of singing ballads
in the streets and distributing broadsheets, nowadays folks set up websites
and instantly spread the word around the globe... Tom Keller collected some
songs and memories from the wide world of the web.
USA - Reactions to September 11 in songs and poetry
Die Erfolgsgeschichte
der geigenden Mädchen der Gruppe Plommon. Plommon, die fünf jungen Frauen
aus dem Süden Schwedens, haben sich insbesondere in der Deutschen Folkszene
in den letzten Jahren einen sehr guten Ruf erspielt, und sind zu Recht inzwischen
nicht mehr aus den deutschen Clubs wegzudenken. Wenn man Plommon sieht, kann
man es fast nicht glauben: Diese junge Band hat schon die ersten 10 Jahre ihrer
Bandgeschichte hinter sich, und seit 5 Jahren gehen sie regelmäßig in Deutschland
auf Tournee... Chrisitan Moll traf die fünf Schwedinnen.
