Malcolm Taylor Grants for Folk Collections Announced

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Published: Thursday, 10 August 2017 10:54

We are pleased to announce two new recipients of the Malcolm Taylor Grant for Folk Collections (MTGFC). 

The grant was set to commemorate Malcolm Taylor’s 35 year service as Library Director of the VWML, and to support the development and care of folk collections by individuals and small organisations. 

This year’s recipients are Nicola Kearey and Coral Reid.

Nicola Kearey                         

Nicola Kearey is a member of the band Stick in the Wheel (SITW), who earlier this year began a project to make recordings of contemporary folk musicians. Some of this material was released on a compilation album ‘From Here: English Folk Field Recordings’. SITW invited the musicians to think about what ‘From Here’ means to them – by way of place or geography, or as a way of exploring their musical origins – an investigation not only of the past, but also of cultural identity; what it means to be making folk music now.

SITW will be continuing to collect contemporary field recordings, but much of the original material – the interviews, film clips, photographs, etc. – is still not available to the public. The MTGFC was awarded to them to help make access to these collections possible through online hosting.

Read more about the project

Photo: ‘From Here’ recording of Martin Carthy 

Coral Reid

Coral Reid is a recent graduate of the Newcastle University Folk Degree, where her undergraduate dissertation explored rapper dance notation. Continuing with that research, Coral will be delivering a project called The Rapper Census which will seek to create an improved form of rapper dance notation, and to collect, notate, and make available, the dances of contemporary rapper dance teams.

Starting at the Dancing England Rapper Tournament (DERT) next year, Coral hopes to film and interview a range of rapper dance teams. The Malcolm Taylor Grant for Folk Collections was awarded to Coral to assist with this research.