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Blowzabella
Blowzabella is an English folk band formed in London in 1978. The band currently consists of Andy Cutting, Jo Freya, Paul James, David Shepherd, Barn Stradling, and Jon Swayne; members of the band have changed multiple times since their inception, with Jon Swayne being the only remaining original band member. It is estimated that Blowzabella musicians played between 26 and 32 instruments in total, which include bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, diatonic button accordion, alto sax, and triangle. Their music is heavily influenced by English and European traditional folk music, and has inspired a variety of European folk bands with their unique style and sound. Many European folk artists attribute Blowzabella as a major influence in their music. Current members * Andy Cutting (diatonic button accordion) * Jo Freya (clarinet, saxophone, vocals) * Paul James (bagpipes, saxophone, vocals) * David Shepherd (violin) * Barn Stradling (bass guitar) * Jon Swayne (bagpipes, saxophone) History Blow ...
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Andy Cutting
Andy Cutting (born 18 March 1969) is an English folk musician and composer. He plays melodeon and is best known for writing and performing traditional English folk and his own original compositions which combine English and French traditions with wider influences. He is three times winner of the Folk Musician of the Year award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and has appeared on around 50 albums, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians. He was born in Harrow, London and is married with three children. Career Starting playing the melodeon in his early teens, Cutting was invited to join a local ceilidh band, Happenstance, when he had been playing for only a few months. In 1988 he joined the influential and innovative band Blowzabella (which also featured Nigel Eaton, with whom Cutting has since collaborated). Cutting made one album (''Vanilla'') with Blowzabella before they broke up in 1990. Their repertoire, blending English traditional music with that ...
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Nigel Eaton
Nigel Eaton is a British multi-instrumentalist and composer best known for playing the hurdy-gurdy. Born in Lyndhurst, Eaton played the piano and cello before switching to the hurdy-gurdy in 1981 when his father, Christopher Eaton, began manufacturing them. Eaton has been described as the "foremost hurdy-gurdy player in popular music in North America and Europe". Career Eaton has performed as a member of a number of different bands, including Whirling Pope Joan (with Julie Murphy), Blowzabella, Ancient Beatbox, The Duellists, and Firestarters of Leiden. He has released two solo albums, ''The Music of the Hurdy-Gurdy'' (1987) and ''Pandemonium'' (2002), and the collaborative album ''Panic at the Café'' (1993) with Andy Cutting. As a session musician, Eaton has contributed to the film scores for ''Robin Hood'', ''The Shipping News'', ''Kingdom of Heaven'', ''Aliens'', ''Mansfield Park,'' ''Tulip Fever'', and Carl Davis's 1980 score for the 1927 silent film ''Napoléon''. Eat ...
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Jo Freya
Jo Freya (born 4 December 1960) is an English saxophonist, clarinettist and singer. She was born Jo Fraser, but changed her name to Jo Freya as a condition of joining the actors' union Equity, which does not allow two of its members to share the same name. She performs mainly folk music and world music and is part of the bands Blowzabella, Old Swan Band and Token Women, as well as performing and / or recording with Lal Waterson, Pete Morton, Maalstroom, and with her sister, Fi Fraser. She is part of the Lal Waterson Project, in memory of Waterson and in celebration of her work. Discography Solo albums * ''Traditional Songs of England'' (1993) * ''Traditional Songs of Wales'' (1993) * ''Lush'' (1996) * ''Lal'' (2007) * ''Female Smuggler'' (2008) Anthology * ''Migrating Bird – The Songs of Lal Waterson'' (2007) With Pete Morton * ''Jo Freya & Pete Morton'' (1997) As a member of ''Blowzabella'' * ''A Richer Dust'' (1988) * ''Vanilla'' (1990) * ''Octomento'' (2007) * ''Dan ...
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Le Mans
Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Mans. Le Mans is a part of the Pays de la Loire region. Its inhabitants are called ''Manceaux'' (male) and ''Mancelles'' (female). Since 1923, the city has hosted the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world's oldest active endurance sports car race. History First mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy, the Roman city ''Vindinium'' was the capital of the Aulerci, a sub tribe of the Aedui. Le Mans is also known as ''Civitas Cenomanorum'' (City of the Cenomani), or ''Cenomanus''. Their city, seized by the Romans in 47 BC, was within the ancient Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis. A 3rd-century amphitheatre is still visible. The ''thermae'' were demolished during the crisis of the third century when workers were mobilized to build the city's defensive walls ...
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Tapan (drum)
The davul, dhol, tapan, atabal or tabl is a large double-headed drum that is played with mallets. It has many names depending on the country and region. These drums are commonly used in the music of the Middle East and the Balkans. These drums have both a deep bass sound and a thin treble sound due to their construction and playing style, where different heads and sticks are used to produce different sounds on the same drum. Names Some names of davuls include: *''dhol'' ( hy, դհոլ) *''dawola/davola'' ( syr, ܛܲܒܼܠܵܐ) *''dohol'' ( fa, دهل dohol) *''doli'' ( ka, დოლი doli) *''davul'' ( tr, davul, lit=drum) *''dahol'' ( ku, dahol, sdh, Dîweł) *''davil'' ( ta, davil) *''davula'' ( Sinhala: දවුල) *''tupan'' ( Goranian: tupan) *''daul'', ''tǎpan'', ''tupan'' ( bg, тъпан, тупан) *''goč'', ''tapan'', ''tupan'' ( sr, гоч, тапан, тупан) *''tapan, tupan'' ( mk, тапан, тупан) *''tobă/dobă'' ( ro , tobă) *''tabl'' ( ...
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Vaughan Williams Memorial Library
The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML) is the library and archive of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), located in the society's London headquarters, Cecil Sharp House. It is a multi-media library comprising books, periodicals, audio-visual materials, photographic images and sound recordings, as well as manuscripts, field notes, transcriptions etc. of a number of collectors of folk music and dance traditions in the British Isles. According to ''A Dictionary of English Folklore'', "... by a gradual process of professionalization the VWML has become the most important concentration of material on traditional song, dance, and music in the country." It is named after Ralph Vaughan Williams, the composer, collector and past president of the EFDSS, who died in 1958. Prior to that it was known as the Cecil Sharp Library, since his books constituted the bulk of the original holdings, but over the years the library has added literature, sound and manuscript col ...
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Sirocco (Australian Band)
Sirocco is an Australian music group that began in 1980 with three musicians: Bill O'Toole, Guy Madigan and Andrew de Teliga. In 1981 Michael Atherton joined and the group recorded their first album ''Paths of the Wind''. They have been nominated for the ARIA Award for Best Indigenous Release in 1987 (''Voyage''), for Best Independent Release in 1990 (''Port of Call'') and for Best World Music Album three times, 1995 (''The Wetland Suite''), 1996 (''Stars and Fires'') and 1999 (''Falling Leaf''). The concept of the band was to find inspiration from the numerous cultures in Australia. When Sirocco started, the music scene in Australia was classical, rock, jazz and a little folk. However, the numerous migrant cultures, such as Chilean, Turkish, Arabic and Irish, had a vibrant music culture. Sirocco tapped into this and brought many of these expert musicians into the band for guest performances. The early albums and performances were known for the unusual array of instruments rar ...
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Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publication) ''New Musical Express''. 1950s–1960s Originally the ''Melody Maker'' (''MM'') concentrated on jazz, and had Max Jones, one of the leading British proselytizers for that music, on its staff for many years. It was slow to cover rock and roll and lost ground to the ''New Musical Express'' (''NME''), which had begun in 1952. ''MM'' launched its own weekly singles chart (a top 20) on 7 April 1956, and an LPs charts in November 1958, two years after the ''Record Mirror'' had published the first UK Albums Chart. From 1964, the paper led its rival publications in terms of approac ...
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Tanpura
The tanpura (), also referred to as tambura and tanpuri, is a long-necked plucked string instrument, originating in India, found in various forms in Indian music. It does not play melody, but rather supports and sustains the melody of another instrument or singer by providing a continuous harmonic bourdon or drone. A tanpura is not played in rhythm with the soloist or percussionist: as the precise timing of plucking a cycle of four strings in a continuous loop is a determinant factor in the resultant sound, it is played unchangingly during the complete performance. The repeated cycle of plucking all strings creates the sonic canvas on which the melody of the raga is drawn. The combined sound of all strings–each string a fundamental tone with its own spectrum of overtones–supports and blends with the external tones sung or played by the soloist. Hindustani musicians favour the term ''tanpura'' whereas Carnatic musicians say ''tambura''; ''tanpuri'' is a smaller varian ...
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Albion Fairs
Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scotland in most of the Celtic languages is related to Albion: ''Alba'' in Scottish Gaelic, ''Albain'' (genitive ''Alban'') in Irish language, Irish, ''Nalbin'' in Manx language, Manx and ''Alban'' in Welsh language, Welsh and Cornish language, Cornish. These names were later Latinisation of names, Latinised as ''Albania'' and Anglicisation, Anglicised as ''Albany'', which were once alternative names for Scotland. ''New Albion'' and ''Albionoria'' ("Albion of the North") were briefly suggested as name of Canada, names of Canada during the period of the Canadian Confederation. Sir Francis Drake gave the name New Albion to what is now California when he landed there in 1579. Etymology The toponym is thought to derive from the Greek word , L ...
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Covent Garden Market
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The area was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic, then abandoned at the end of the 9th century after which it returned to fields. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable land ...
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St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grade I listed building. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present structure, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren's lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the city after the Great Fire of London. The earlier Gothic cathedral (Old St Paul's Cathedral), largely destroyed in the Great Fire, was a central focus for medieval and early modern London, including Paul's walk and St Paul's Churchyard, being the site of St Paul's Cross. The cathedral is one of the most famous and recognisable sights of London. Its dome, surrounded by the spires of Wren's City chur ...
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