Born 1975 – Still going strong. Next Festival 3rd, 4th and 5th May 2019
Not sure how legible this will be, but this is a timetable for Buses serving the outlying villages for festival events. It will be printed in the Festival programme, but it would be good for advance planning if local people were aware of this facility. So if you know anyone this might be helpful to, please point it out to them.
Adam McNaughtan, The legendary Glasgow songwriter whose compositions include The Yellow On The Broom, The Jeely Piece Song, and Oor Hamlet yet again comes out of retirement to grace The Bobby Robb Tribute Concert which last year drew a Saturday afternoon packed house. Attenders are recommended to get along early for the best seats this year. Tickets for this concert are available on the Festival website. Best value is the Weekend Ticket, a Saturday Day Ticket will get you this concert plus other events that day including the evening concert with The Tannahill Weavers.
17 Apr, 2018, Gaiety Theatre, AYR. Tickets £10
The Girvan Traditional Folk Festival celebrates its 43rd year in style with an exclusive pre-festival taster session at The Gaiety featuring music from Maggie MacInnes, one of Scotland’s foremost Gaelic singers and clarsach players. In 2004 Maggie was voted Best Gaelic Singer of the Year in the BBC Scots Trad Music Awards. She comes from a long line of singers from the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland and has performed in various groups over the years such as Ossian, Fuaim, Eclipse First and The Maggie MacInnes Band, and this evening Maggie will perform with her musician son Calum Park. Also performing will be Eddie Seaman (pipes/whistles) and Luc McNally (guitar/vocals) – two of the five members of the young and talented band Barluath. The 2018 Girvan Traditional Folk Festival runs from Friday 4th to Sunday 6th May.
Girvan Festival is now constituted as a Charity as part of our strategic plan. It won’t make any immediate differences but it makes sense to us in terms of governance and strategy.
Margaret Bennett will be presenting a talk on songs collected from a Newfoundland singer Jerome Downie.
Want to come to the Festival but put off by the cost of the ferry? Why not leave your car at Belfast or Larne and come over as a foot passenger? If you have bought a weekend ticket and are coming over by boat on the 4th May, we will meet you and transport you to Girvan. Transport will also be available to take you to the ferry on Monday. Contact us by email to register your interest.
GUESTS INCLUDE: The Tannahill Weavers; Len Graham & Jack Lynch; Rita Gallagher; Lori Watson Trio; George Duff, Kevin MacLeod, John Martin, Leo McCann; Nick Dow; Eddie Seaman & Luc McNally; Maggie MacInnes Trio; Margaret Bennett; Susan McClure; Aileen Carr; Haggerdash; Fàilte; The Barrstools; Suitcase Circus; Irma Helou; The Tattiehowkers Ceilidh Band.
The Tannahill Weavers – Over the years the Tannies have been trailblazers for Scottish music. In 2011 the band was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, and in 2014 they were joined by innovative piper Lorne MacDougall. With their 50th anniversary in 2018, the Tannahill Weavers are firmly established as one of the premier groups on the concert stage. From reflective ballads to footstomping reels and jigs, the variety and range of the material they perform is matched only by their enthusiasm and lively Celtic spirits.
As a guitar-accompanied singer, he sounds startlingly like Nic Jones, unaccompanied, he’s really a good and interesting singer.
Nick Dow is an all-round professional folk singer and folklorist, singing and researching English and Irish traditional songs, taught and encouraged by traditional singers from Dorset and Lancashire as well as singers from the travelling people. He also builds and restores gypsy wagons. Nick is an acknowledged expert on West Country folk song. Together with his wife Mally, has collected over 300 songs in Dorset, and discovered singers in Lancashire & Essex. He has also made recordings of gypsy singers, some of which have been included on Topic Records ’The Voice of the People’. Nick has lived an amazing life, travelling half way round the world, living on the road with the travelling folk and learning their songs, working as a TV and Film Extra, broadcaster, Narrowboat painter, writer, Folklorist, Guitar Teacher General Dealer. Every song Nick sings has a story attached to it, and his gigs are as informative as they are entertaining.
This year’s Gradam for Amhránaí na Bliana (Singer of the Year 2017) goes to RITA GALLAGHER
Upon hearing this distinctive traditional singer, one is immediately aware one is listening to a vocalist of incredible ability. Her mastery of tone, breath, and ornamentation, coupled with her extensive knowledge and understanding of songs, from her native South Donegal and beyond, leave one in no doubt that one is truly in the presence of greatness. A three-time winner of the Comhaltas All-Ireland title for female singing in English, her extensive repertoire contains many exceptionally challenging songs, all of which she makes sound effortless.
See website for further details www.girvanfolkfestival.org.uk/guests/
The dates for the 2018 are Friday 4th to Sunday 6th May.
JUST GIVING CROWDFUNDING
Here’s another practical way small donation way to help support this year’s festival. Please share the crowd funding link with your contacts:
Help raise £1500 to continue the tradition and build for the future of the Girvan Traditional Folk Festival
We’re grateful to everyone who helped the Festival to raise over £600 through crowdfunding last year. That gave us a boost and a belief that “people out there” care about what the Girvan Traditional Folk Festival stands for.
Since the 2017 event, we have refreshed the organising committee and brought in new energy – determined to consolidate the Festival and build for its future. We’ve developed an outreach programme with concerts arranged in villages around Girvan and new marketing initiatives including a new Facebook page (@girvanfestival) and an updated website (www.girvantraditionalfolkfestival.org.uk) – where you can find out more about our history and plans.
Our crowdfunding target this year is a bit more ambitious and we hope you will help us to reach it. Please help us to make the 2018 Festival (4th to 6th May) a huge success
2024 will be the 50th Anniversary of Girvan Festival and we hope to reach that milestone on the crest of a wave.
Although the committee has started working towards our festival in 2018, we have one eye on the longer-term future. 2024 will be the 50th Anniversary of Girvan Festival and we hope to reach that milestone on the crest of a wave. Our assumption is that none (or few) of the present organisers will be in place beyond the 50th Festival – although there might be a continuing role as mentors – so we now have just a few short years to address issues of how best to pass the torch on to younger generations.
Few will disagree that the folk scene is maturing gracefully and the ‘ageing issue’ is one that most folk festivals are facing. We have to believe, and do believe, that solutions are there to be found. The Girvan committee is of the opinion that the Festival has the ability to continue to appeal to its core audience; the ability to reinvent itself to a newer audience; and the capability of re-engaging with some of its former audiences, including those from further afield.
A lot of work has been done in the background. We have plans or the coming months which we hope you will be enthused by, and a more strategic plan, which could be summarised as:
Followed by:
To keep in touch with progress, we encourage you to subscribe to the email News Feed on this website. Those of you who have already joined the mailing list on this site, will have already received this ‘news story’ by email. You won’t be flooded by messages. If the site has a story added, you will get an email. If nothing has been added – no email. As the Meercats say – Simples!
P.S. The festival dates for 2018 are May 4, 5 and 6, 2018. We hope that you have them in your diary.