The country s oldest competitive festival Menu TO MANY local musicians, spring is heralded by the Mary Wakefield festival. Founded in 1885 by the daughter of Kendal’s leading banking and gunpowder manufacturing family, it is the country’s oldest competitive festival. Mary was a stout jolly old maid of 32. She and her sister Agnes Argles of Eversley House, Heversham, held the first choir festival on the tennis court of Sedgwick House, the Wakefields country house. In 1887, the venue moved to St George’s Hall in Kendal - where the impression that the festival was on ‘the behoof’ of parish churches was counteracted by the affirmation that it was open without ‘distinction of class or creed’. Even so, the committee was composed mainly of gentry and half gentry who recruited their own staff and tenants as competitors. But they did their best awarding prizes for good attendance at practices and reimbursing travel costs.
Bang the drum for change: why do orchestras have so few women percussionists?
theguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
BBC Radio 3 marks International Women s Day with a 24-hour celebration of women composers in a special week of celebration of female creativity
bbc.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bbc.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Delve into the past of Stamford, Bourne, Rutland and the Deepings with Mercury Memories
10 years ago
Motorists could soon be paying less to park in Stamford.
South Kesteven District Council is planning to drop fees at its short-stay car parks to 2008 levels in a bid to encourage shoppers to stay longer and help struggling traders.
The current £1 charge for an hourâs parking would be cut to 80p and a four-hour stay would drop from £8 to £4.
25 years ago: February 9, 1996 â Youngsters in Ketton were treated to an afternoon of coaching by two local stars at the village sports complex. Pictured: Melissa Giddings (13) gets in some heading practise with Steve Collins while Micky Gynn and the rest of the youngsters watch with interest.
When were sea shanties invented? Roderick Swanston takes a look at the origins of the sea shanty and discovers a rich musical heritage, which dates back to at least the 15th century and possibly earlier Published:
How did sea shanties originate?
It is most likely that the majority of songs sung by sailors did not originate on board but on land. They were ballads that had been learnt in youth and been adapted by sailors to accompany their work. Separate sea-songs, particularly those accompanying work, stretch back further than records of what the songs were can trace. But if a beginning is hard to chronicle, Captain WB Whall (1837-c1925) – an ordinand studying music with Sir John Stainer in Oxford, who changed his mind and went to sea – saw the end of a sea-song tradition as steam took over. Among his earliest shipmates were some who had fought on ships before what they described as ‘the Peace’ (1815). Captain Whall lamented, in the first edition of his