FOAOTMAD defers Gainsborough 2021

Tim Rooke, festival organiser of FOAOTMAD, the UK's organisation for old-time music and dance, announces this grave news for the premier old-time event in these islands (links have been added by the BIB).

As a result of the restrictions imposed by the government relating to mass gatherings and the use of theatres etc. it has been decided that we must cancel the Gainsborough Festival weekend planned for February 2021. For further information please see the next issue of the Old Time News.

A seven-minute compilation of highlights from this year's event (14-17 Feb. 2021) can be seen on YouTube, including a clip of Ireland's Grits & Gravy Stringband at 2:27. Also on YouTube is a forty-one-minute podcast by Ian Rattray, including interviews with Emily Schaad, Travis Stuart, Hilarie Burhans, and Ivy and David Sheppard.

More information on online old-time music in Britain is on the FOAOTMAD news blog.

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The blog also gives ample details of the programme and lineup of the 49th Annual Santa Barbara Old-Time Fiddlers' Festival, normally held in California, which will be an online event this year on Sunday 11 October. The programme includes concerts, workshops, contests in fiddle, banjo, and singing with a $400 first prize in each category, a raffle for a unique gourd banjo, and more.