Old-time music at Sore Fingers Week

John Wirtz announces in the latest newsletter from Sore Fingers Week, the premier bluegrass and old-time instruction workshop in Europe:

Despite many appeals in this news letter and around the Old Time scene in general, we have only managed to secure 10 students on Old Time Banjo and 9 on Old Time fiddle for Sore Fingers Week 2009. We have had difficulty selling places on Old Time now for about three years, and we can only conclude the demand for what we are offering is not there. Bluegrass courses have booked well even in these difficult economic times (we have three full bluegrass banjo courses this year!)

We will take a loss on both O.T. courses this year and we cannot continue to do that. So the plan for 2010 is as follows:

We believe Old Time should have a presence at Sore Fingers Week as it is inherently linked to the music we seek to promote, so we are not discontinuing the availability of Old Time courses.

We will make contact with a fiddle and banjo tutor from the US for 2010, but these will only be confirmed if we get a minimum of fifteen booking by the end of August 2009. If we don’t achieve those numbers, we will replace the US tutor with one based in the UK to keep the costs down.

US people being considered are Bob Carlin, Dirk Powell (if we can get him), Bruce Molsky, etc. More news on this later. UK tutors under consideration are Dave Marshall, Bill Whelan, Jock Tildesley, Dave Proctor, Kate Lissauer, etc. Please note Jock will be teaching the Old Time course next October.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact us at the Sore Fingers Week office.