Muireann writes: What a year 2020 has been! Little did we know when we left Dolan's in Limerick on our 'Thar Toinn' Tour in March that we wouldn't be back on stage for a live gig with a real life audience again this year. It's been a strange one, filled with home-schooling, home recording and living room shows. I’ve really missed performing. To that end, I have a little bit of news.

The Wilderness Yet (Rosie Hodgson, Rowan Piggott and Philippe Barnes) has released a special festive digital album entitled Turn The Year Round. Available on Bandcamp it is a collection of secular folk carols, wassails, and yule songs both old & new!

Get your hands on it at thewildernessyet.bandcamp.com

Talking Elephant has released A Midwinter Miscellany, a collection of spoken word, poems, stories and songs that celebrate the many aspects of the festive season featuring Ashely Hutchings with Becky Mills and Blair Dunlop.  Ashley has taken excerpts from a variety of literary sources to inspire new songs.  Other writings and poems are given a new treatment with music composed by Blair and Becky.  And Becky also contributes several new songs.  The annual Albion Christmas Band tour is not able to happen this year, but this recording gives something

The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) has begun a new monthly series that connects artists with archival material to inspire new art.  Louise Mulcahy, Martin Hayes, Edwina Guckian, Mary Bergin, Tony Linnane and Brían Mac Gloinn are just some of the leading instrumentalists, singers and dancers who have been commissioned to spend time engaging with collections of their choice in ITMA and to then produce something new that can be shared with the public.

When Roy Williamson died in 1990, most of his instruments were sold at auction, with a few donated to the Falconer Museum in Forres. A notable exception, the famed combolins – priceless instruments he designed and partly built himself, the folk world’s Stradivarius, perhaps – were left in the capable hands of his friend Dave Sinton.

Ewan MacColl (1915-1989) was a giant of folk music: inspirational singer, actor, activist and writer of hundreds of songs including beloved classics Dirty Old Town, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Shoals Of Herring, The Manchester Rambler and more.

The ICC Seisiúns is a collection of 14 acoustic Irish sessions filmed at The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith which are now being screened on ICC Digital, the new online platform of The Irish Cultural Centre.  The performances are being shown every consecutive Friday over 14 weeks, and started mid-September.

Much loved English duo, Spiers & Boden, have announced that they are back together and working on new material for a launch at summer festivals in 2021 and a comeback tour in October 2021.  John Spiers and Jon Boden rocketed onto the folk scene in 2001, and after many successful years, during which they founded and fronted the band Bellowhead, they disbanded as a duo in 2014.  News of their comeback, and of a new album, will please their many fans.

from Pete Heywood on Vimeo

Rothbury Music Festival ‘frontload’ artists’ payments

Like so many events, the Rothbury Traditional Music Festival, which was due to take place in July with performances from the likes of Martin Carthy, Cathal Hayden, Northern Company, 422 and the Newcastle Kingsmen, has been cancelled. However, unlike a lot of other events, the acts and artists who were booked to play will all be offered their fee, paid in advance of the rescheduled festival, which will take place in July 2021.

New album of Doc Watson live recordings

Over the years Doc Watson has inspired countless people to pick up the guitar and learn to flatpick the old melodies of the Appalachians.  A continuing influence on music in America and beyond, a new release of some old recordings of Doc alongside his fiddling father-in-law, Gaither Carlton, has been scheduled for the end of May by Smithsonian Folkways.