Community roots at the heart of Devon folk festival

From the legendary co-creator of the Bagpuss songs, to the voice on the stunning soundtrack to Guy Ritchie’s forthcoming Hollywood blockbuster, this autumn’s Baring-Gould Folk Weekend in Devon promises to be a rare treat for lovers of traditional music in all its forms.

In fact, the 18th annual festival in the Dartmoor town of Okehampton on Friday 21 to Sunday 23 October could well be the most varied yet, with a deliberate switch by its organisers to showcase more Devon-based singers and musicians as well as established names from across the UK.

The event, organised by Okehampton-based Wren Music, takes place at various venues in the town and includes performances of two concerts created and performed in 2016 by members of some of Wren’s 16 community choirs and orchestras. Soloists now performing in their own right but who started off in Wren’s groups are also in the festival line-up, together with Wren founders Paul Wilson and Marilyn Tucker, and Wren patron Phil Beer from Show of Hands.

The varied nature of the programme is nowhere better illustrated than in the appearance of Sandra Kerr on one hand and Sam Lee on the other. Sandra, who performed with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in Ewan MacColl’s Critics Group in the 1960s, is best known for co-writing the music and singing some of the songs in the children’s TV show, Bagpuss.

Sandra will be rounding off an afternoon of family events at Charter Hall on the Sunday by leading a Family Concert. She says of her work on Bagpuss: “I am immensely proud to have been involved in this series. Its ecological theme of re-use and re-cycling is timely and satisfyingly anti-consumerist – and besides which, we had an absolutely hilarious time making the films!”

North London-based singer and song collector Sam, meanwhile, is one of the biggest names in traditional music in the UK right now and will be heard in cinemas around the world next year. Sam was asked by film director Guy Ritchie to sing on the soundtrack of his Hollywood movie King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (view the trailer with Sam’s music). Due for release in 2017, it stars Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Charles Dance – and David Beckham.

Sam, who’s making a return to the Baring-Gould Festival as one of its biggest fans, is playing one of the Sunday evening slots at the Church Hall and the audience can expect to hear a selection of the songs he has collected from travelling communities across the UK and Ireland.

Acclaimed fiddle player Tom Kitching and singer Gavin Davenport have performed together at events up and down the country for a number of years but here, they’re scheduled to play solo at various times and venues across the weekend. Don’t rule anything out though!

Like Sam, Gavin, who lived in Devon for a several years before moving to Liverpool, enjoys the story-telling of traditional songs. Although he has worked with Wren before, this will be his first time at the festival: “I'm looking forward to it because it is so focused on participation,” said Gavin. “Many other festivals render the audience passive spectators, but this seems like a great chance for people to charge their creative batteries and develop new enthusiasm.”

So what can festival-goers expect? “Stories and characters, unusual versions of songs they might know, but also newly-written and adapted things that take cues from the tradition.”

As well as performing over the weekend, Tom Kitching is taking the orchestra sessions on Saturday and Sunday morning, alongside Wren’s own Becki Driscoll. Scottish folk singer Janet Russell is taking the choir sessions and both are open to anyone to turn up and take part. The newly-assembled orchestra and choir come together to perform at the final concert at Charter Hall on Sunday evening.

There’s another chance for people to get involved on Saturday afternoon, with a Folk Café followed by a Blackboard Concert at Charter Hall, where people can put their names down to sing or play – and festival performers can do the same. Also listed for Saturday’s programme are Phil Beer and the Wren Ceilidh Band with Cate Bannister calling.

This year’s Baring-Gould Festival is also an opportunity for some of Wren Music’s community group members to perform, as Nick Wyke from Wren explained: “The festival has been evolving down the years and we felt it was right that we should celebrate and showcase the talents of the people who work with Wren in our choirs and orchestras around Devon.”

It’s therefore another chance for people to see Wren’s two hugely successful concerts from this year, A Random Melody, about life in rural Devon, and Singing Her Story,(view a showcase on YouTube) which celebrates the unsung heroines of women’s history: “When we took A Random Melody on tour, finishing at the Sidmouth Folk Festival, audiences were completely charmed by it,” said Nick.

“Some people didn’t know what to expect because we performed new arrangements of old Devon songs alongside photographs from the famous James Ravilious collection from North Devon, but they loved it. People told us that the mix of the music and the photos really said something about life in Devon so we think it’s perfect for the Baring-Gould Weekend.”

Singing Her Story was first performed at Exeter’s Cygnet Theatre on International Women’s Day in March. The project was led by Wren’s Marilyn Tucker, Sarah Owen and Amy Wilson, who were joined by a chorus recruited from Wren’s choirs: “Again, the feedback from the concert was amazing and we think people will enjoy it at the festival,” said Nick.

Tickets are £40 for admission to all events over the weekend, or £120 for four tickets.

The festival is followed by the week-long Baring-Gould Song School at Wren’s HQ in Okehampton, where Sam Lee and Sandra Kerr will be joining Wren’s tutors at the start of the week.

For more information, visit www.baring-gould.co.uk; to book tickets, go to www.devonshiredumpling.co.uk. Or contact Wren Music on 01837 53754.