This article was submitted on March 1 2013 to Autoharp Notes, the journal of the UK's autoharp community. The article was rewritten at the last minute, when we heard that our bid for Arts Council funding had been successful.
P.O'S.
Gargrave: Autoharp
Capital of the North
Gargrave Autoharp Festival
Gargrave Village Hall
Yorkshire BD23 3RD
Friday May 31, Saturday June 1, Sunday June 2 2013
Our Friends in the South
I have the email record.
I can tell you precisely when UK Autoharps President, Neil Gillard, and
our Treasurer, Terry Pearson, first asked me to look at the possibility of
creating an Autoharp Event somewhere in the North of England. It was in June 2011. The brief background is that there had never
been a UKAA Event in the North of England, and we do not have many members in
the North. I live in Bradford,
Yorkshire. I get lonely.
First, look at guidelines prepared by Bob Edbon, UKAA’s
Advance Organiser, and liaise with Bob.
And get a feel for the kind of building, the kind of venue, the kind of
environment that might work for UKAA. A
new model, just on the horizon in 2011, was Nadine White’s little festival, in
Moniaive, Scotland – I went there, and became aware of a village where a major
industry, connected to local tourism, was…
music festivals. And, of course,
I went to as many of the standard UKAA days as I could.
A little check list developed inside my head
– I will mention two recent events that made it to that checklist. Sue Edwards’ autoharp weekend in Stroud, and
the Autoharp Day at the American Museum, Bath, in 2012. At the American Museum the Autoharp was made
welcome. I am in danger of disappearing
into a sort of Autoharper code here, but I think the readers of this journal
will know what I mean. So, note to
self: how do you create an event and an
environment where the autoharp is welcome?
I think here of classes by Nadine and Ian White, and of reports on the
UKAA Facebook pages of brave souls making brave forays into the folk clubs –
work on the welcome. The day at the
American Museum in Bath was, of course, dreadfully afflicted by the rain – and
lots of lovely planned things just could not happen. So, note to self: plan for rain. Further note to self: it might not rain.
And, of course, note to self: plan for Mike Fenton. Plan for Mike Fenton’s diary, plan for Mike
Fenton’s van. That van full of
autoharps. I recall once at Sorefingers
there was a crisis one evening when Mike Fenton could not find the keys to his
van. We searched through the grass in
the dark, with torchlight and fingers.
Fraught, intense, of course – keys are anxious things. But, I realise now, in that van rides the
future of the autoharp in the England. And a general note about planning an autoharp
event: we must look after our
professionals.
Our Friends in the North
So, back at my home in Yorkshire… Look at costs and possible budgets. And then begin prospecting. I talked to musician friends, and friends in
other branches of the arts and culture businesses. Looking at venues was a curious mix of the
tedious and the depressing. I recalled
places where I had taken part in events, or I had been part of planning
events. When I went to visit I would find
a derelict building with its slates stolen.
Or I would find a shutter-encased fortress, in a car park full of broken
glass. And I would think: I cannot bring my delicate autoharpers
here. Increasingly as venues were
suggested I would first check them out on Google Maps and Snaps. And I made the decision – and I say this with
a certain amount of guilt, and I have since been challenged about the decision
– to stop looking in the cities and urban areas of Yorkshire. It would have been just too difficult to move
into some areas with something small scale, new and strange.
I began to start conversations, with possible centres,
community groups, music clubs and music groups.
One failed extended conversation is worth mentioning – with Skipton, the
attractive market town in North Yorkshire, where I have friends and
contacts. Skipton – a bit like Moniaive
- has a regular cycle of festivals and cultural events. Friends of mine are involved in the Puppet
Festival, other friends are involved in the Waterways Festival. And, suddenly, there was a gap in the 2013
sequence of festivals, when our friends in the Waterways Festival pulled
out. Skipton asked us if we would like
to fill that gap. It was too big a gap
for Autoharp alone, but Bob Ebdon and I put work into seeing how you could
develop an Autoharp-centred event in a market town, with the help of the other
lesser-spotted musical instruments.
There was great enthusiasm – musicians wanted it. It would have come together. But we were really involved, of course, in
local politics. Skipton has three
different levels of local government, and communication had broken down about
the needs of the Waterways Festival. The
threat of our proposed music festival was enough to mend communication. Note to self:
re-read Winifred Holtby, South Riding.
Some possible venues, especially the ones with
professional management in place, are impossible for other reasons. There is no possibility of dialogue, no
flexibility, no autonomy. When we
approach them we are not even a customer, we are a resource to be
exploited. There is no way of beginning
the conversation – that we are bringing something new into a community. (To win that argument, of course, we must
bring something new into the community.)
I feel now, after talking to friends in music, theatre and other
cultural businesses, that this is a real problem in this country. I know the debates – but there is little
point in building and servicing venues if creative people cannot afford to use
them. And audiences do not enter
them. And I am thinking here of that
derelict building with its slates stolen.
Some venue costs look to me unrecoverable. It was clear that budgets must be tweaked - a
small, national organisation like UK Autoharps can only do so much with its
members’ subscriptions and good will. A
major factor in planning any event nowadays is the cost of diesel – especially
an event in the North of England. Think
of Mike Fenton’s van…
Gargrave Autoharp Festival
Then began the conversation with Gargrave Village
Hall. We are really fortunate to have
met Sally Thomas and her husband Roland, who have taken on the work of
continuing the conversation within the Village Hall committee and within the
Village community. Sally and Roland
found us that weekend, the weekend of Saturday June 1 2013 – none of the other
regular Village Hall users were using it.
We have tweaked the budget – because we have an alliance with the local
community, and through them with the local authorities, we can put in credible
funding applications.
As I write, comes the news that our bid for Arts Council
funding has been successful. The
immediate consequences are that we can treat our professionals with the respect
that they have earned and deserved. And
we can safeguard UK Autoharps development fund for further projects next year.
Contact with the local community brings local knowledge,
so that we are plugged into local community groups, listings, newspapers,
radio, web sites. Gargrave is a very
attractive village, near Skipton, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. I can bring my delicate autoharpers
here. The core of our standard Saturday
Autoharp Day is in place, June 1, with demonstrations and classes.
The further funding tweak - alongside Arts Council
support - is that Gargrave Village Hall is letting us have the use of the venue
for free. In return we will put on a
Grand Concert, Autoharp and Friends, on the evening of Saturday June 1. The 'And Friends' bit means that we can offer
a balanced evening, reaching out to our musician and performer contacts and
colleagues in Yorkshire - the contacts that Bob Ebdon and I have made. I have already had to turn down two quite
significant local bands, who offered to play at our concert for free. It is a question of balance. The Grand Concert must showcase the
Autoharp. (And then some Friends...)
We are in Gargrave as guests of the community - we
should, like good guests, bring a small gift.
It turns out that Gargrave has its own poet, Robert Story, who died in
1860. They don't quite know what to make
of him. But we do. Robert Story wrote song lyrics. My suggestion is that we take a couple of
Robert Story lyrics and perform them at our Grand Concert. Most of his work is now freely available on
Google Books. I am writing a series of
articles for the Gargrave Village Magazine.
The first will be about the Autoharp and our hopes for the Gargrave
Autoharp Festival. They have now asked
me to write a further article, about Robert Story. I can do that.
Meanwhile I go to every community meeting that will give
me a chance to speak. Gargrave's pub is
involved. And we will have a
Moniaive-style Autoharp Service in St. Andrew's, Gargrave's beautiful church,
on the morning of Sunday June 1.
Everyone in Gargrave now knows what an Autoharp looks like - they are
still desperately waiting to meet someone who can really play the damn
thing. So far they have had to make do
with me.
Patrick O'Sullivan
March 1 2013
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