Maiden City Festival Weblog

There are a number of web additions we are working on, but its taking some time.

During the Culture Bite lunchtime performances we tried our best to capture some video of each of the performances, but didn’t always manage to get around everyone. One of the performers we missed was Fiona Scott Trotter. We only managed a 30 second snippet at the very end of her session. Not to miss out, we have captured some video of a more recent performance at No Alibis Bookshop in Belfast, where it seems there is always some great jazz each month. Fiona was the first jazz vocalist at this intimate little venue.

We’ve put up three pieces from her No Alibis set on the Maiden City Festival Website, of which this is the smoooooothest.

Hope to have more news for you in the next few weeks.

One of the programmes running along in the background of the Maiden City Festival is Fowk Foundation. The idea of the Fowk Foundation is to explore the roots of music, poetry or storytelling. We have started with music and specifically the tradition of ballads. Within the next few weeks or so, we will be launching a web space dedicated to the Fowk Foundation, which we hope to develop over years to come.

The concept for the Fowk Foundation started in conversation with Josh Goforth on a previous visit. Later, some research was undertaken at the English Folk Dance & Song Society’s Cecil Sharp House, Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, specifically the Cecil Sharp collection of songs from the Appalachian Mountains annotated in the early part of the 20th Century. The songs of the Appalachians were locked in time due to the closeness of the communities in the mountains, and their distance from external influences. Our interest lies in the fact that many of the songs would have had their roots in the cultures of the original mountain settlers, many of which were Scotch-Irish. Along with Josh Goforth, John Trotter was able to identify essences of Scottish and English roots in the music collected by Sharp.

The song featured here is one from the Cecil Sharp Collection which was collected in Madison County, North Carolina, the home county of Josh Goforth. It is a taste of what is in store once the web space is organised. For updates on the progress of the Fowk Foundation, keep an eye on this weblog or join the Maiden City Festival on Facebook which you can access from the website.

Josh Goforth is joined by Fiona Scott Trotter on vocal and John Trotter on accordion. Beautiful song.