EFDSS Musicians in Museums residency at the NCMME

Bryony is thrilled to have been selected as a musician in residence for the new EFDSS Musicians in Museums project.

 

Six excellent artists have been selected as musicians in residence at museums in Wakefield, Greenwich and Reading in an ambitious new scheme run by the English Folk Dance and Song Society, with funding from Help Musicians.

 

Each musician will explore creative links between the tangible culture and history of the museum’s collections and artefacts and the intangible culture and history of folk songs and tunes. The residencies will draw on the artists’ extensive range of experience and talents as educators and creative musicians. Each artist will work over an extended period of twelve months at their museum, and in their museum’s local community. They will each develop a new music work which will be performed at the end of the residency, and they will deliver outreach activities to engage people with the museum and with folk music.

This is the latest project in EFDSS’ Artists’ Development programme for the English folk arts. In recent years EFDSS has commissioned and supported many new works covering a broad range of music and dance across England.

 

National Coal Mining Museum for England

Bryony Griffith and Andy Seward have each been awarded bursaries to be Musicians in Residence at the National Coal Mining Museum for England in Wakefield.

Andy Seward is an electric/double bass player, record producer and recording engineer from the Dearne Valley in South Yorkshire. He is probably best known for his work with folk superstar Kate Rusby, recording and mixing her seminal records including her Mercury-nominated album Sleepless, and as the double bass/banjo player in her live band. He has also worked extensively with virtuoso guitarist Martin Simpson, producing his critically acclaimed albums True Stories (2007), Purpose and Grace (2011) and playing bass in his trio and big band. He is also the series music producer for the BBC’s Radio Ballads.

Bryony Griffith is a highly accomplished fiddle player and distinctive singer with a broad repertoire of traditional English dance tunes and songs. She has a passion for delving through the tune and song manuscripts of her native Yorkshire and has more recently begun to collect songs about Industrial Heritage. Her skills and enthusiasm encompass solo performance, duo work with her husband, Will Hampson, and extensive experience of playing for folk dancing, including her role in the BBC Folk Award-winning Demon Barbers. She has over twenty years’ experience researching folk material and devising innovative ways of presenting it for use in performance and education work with children, young people and adults. She was recently appointed as a vocal tutor on the new Folk Music degree course at Leeds College of Music.

The National Coal Mining Museum for England provides a great day out with a unique opportunity to travel 140 metres underground down one of Britain’s oldest working mines. Situated in a rural setting, it offers an unusual combination of exciting experiences, whilst providing a genuine insight into the hard-working lives of miners through the ages.

Yorkshire Evening Post article