With a huge thanks to Conrad and Jennifer Bailey for their continuing donations, we are delighted to announce the awardees for the third year of Micro Grants for Professional Folk Artists who live and work in England.
The Micro Grants for Professional Folk Artists support artists in any way that will help develop their professional career. Applications range from developing creative projects to support for the production of new albums to instrument or equipment purchases.
Micro Grants have been awarded to:
Mishra & Deepa Nair Rasiya
Contribution towards project development.
Mishra music fuses UK folk, Indian Classical music and traditional world music. Founding members Ford Collier (The Drystones) and Kate Griffin (The Magpies) and renowned Indian vocalist Deepa Nair Raisya first worked together in 2021 through a commission from zerOclassikal.
This funding will support a five day residency to further develop their musical collaborations for performances in 2023.
Nat Brookes
Purchase of a Harmonik AC5001-PLUS Microphone.
Nat is an Accordionist, Caller, Composer and Arranger committed to exploring traditional dance music and expanding and amplifying new and old tunes, focussing on instrumental collaborations that pair their unique compositional personality with a love and reverence for folk music.
For a musician who performs in a variety of settings including outdoors, this internal microphone system will be virtually impervious to feedback and will be far less affected by the elements when playing outside.
Georgie Buchanan
Purchase and installation of a Dusty Strings Harp Pick Up.
Singer and harpist Georgie Buchanan, who will be bringing out her debut album Wise as a Fool in early 2023, applied to purchase this microphone system to improve the amplification of her lever harp. The Pick Up will improve the range of frequencies achievable and so will give a fuller and more balanced sound to amplified performance.
Johnny Campbell
Payment towards studio time for upcoming single release, guitar lessons and a press shoot.
Singer, songwriter and guitarist, Johnny Campbell, focusses on Northern English traditional and original song and story, drawing upon nature, radical and oral histories and the folklore of Northern England for his inspiration.
Johnny’s grant will support the production of his new single, due for release in June through guitar tuition, use of a professional recording studio and photography for PR use.
Madame Ceski (aka Francesca Simmons)
Purchase of a new speakers and acoustic amp.
Francesca Simmons is experimental & improvisatory musician and composer whose work references folk, experimental & esoteric practices. Following on from the work created in 2021 through an EFDSS Alan James Creative Bursary , Francesca has created an interactive and immersive sound exhibition, Sound Henge with social enterprise company Bricks. The purchase of this sound equipment will support the expansion of the exhibition to enable interaction with the public and support further exploration for such engagement for future projects.
Archie Churchill-Moss
Purchase of new left hand bass system for a VanderAa accordion.
Award-winning accordionist Archie Churchill-Moss is known for his performances with Moore, Moss, Rutter, with Tom Moore and with Sam Kelly and the Lost Boys. The purchase of a left hand bass system will benefit Archie’s development as a folk music artist through the removal of the melodic/harmonic obstacles present on all current diatonic button accordion systems. This new system will be completely unique and will allow Archie to reimagine his approach to harmony and enable him to accompany other musicians with full chromaticism.
Photo credit: Graham Coe
