Concertinas have been welcomed as a part of the Palestine festival since 2005. The concertina is a Victorian-era instrument that had a large global following in the middle and late nineteenth century – especially in America, Ireland, England, Australia, and South Africa – and has seen a great resurgence in interest in folk and traditional music circles in the past few decades. Our past concertina headliners have included Jody Kruskal, Bertram Levi, Dave Roberts, and Ann Kirrane. We concertina players have always been grateful to Jerry and to Margaret for allowing us to be part of the Old Pal fun, even though concertinas – a true old-time instrument – are not the stuff of classic American string bands!
This year’s lineup of volunteer workshop leaders includes:
Gary Coover, who has published a new book of English session tunes, will hold a tune-playing slow session for these great tunes, for both English and Anglo concertinas. He will also teach a workshop on beginning to play in the harmonic style for Anglo.
Steve Schulteis has published a new book of sacred music for concertina and will hold two workshops on how to play these lovely old tunes in a harmonic style.
Jarrett Branch and Dan Worrall just published a new book on the concertina music of William Kimber, one of the leaders of the English Morris dance revival from 125 years ago. They will hold a workshop on his particular way of approaching the Anglo concertina. They will also lead an Irish tunes slow session, like last year, for all instruments. Elsewhere on this site, you will note that Maria Terres (fiddle) and Amy McFarland (piano) of Rare Privilege are returning to Old Pal as headliners. We’re looking forward to having them join us in the Irish session too, as both of them are budding concertina players!
On Thursday afternoon, well before the evening concert, we concertina players usually get together for socializing and an early dinner at the Pint and Barrel pub, at 5pm. Friday lunch at Shep’s BBQ is an old tradition for this group, as well.
There is no extra fee for the concertina workshops; just pay the normal festival gate fee upon entering. For these workshops, if you confirm in advance your attendance to Dan Worrall in an email at danworrall@msn.com, we’ll send you gratis pdfs of workshop music well ahead of time, along with a schedule of workshop times. Gary will of course also have copies of the above-mentioned new books plus others from the vault of Rollston Press for sale at a festival reduced price.
We look forward to seeing you!
