Micro Grants Awarded to Folk Artists
With a huge thanks to Conrad and Jennifer Bailey for their continuing donations, we are delighted to announce the awardees for the fifth 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 the production of new albums to instrument or equipment purchases.
Micro Grants have been awarded to:
Germa Adan
Costs towards time for creative project development. The research will include three vocal music traditions Scottish Puirt à beul, Indian classical singing and Guadeloupe Bouladjèl to extend vocal practice.
Germa Adan, a talented musician, draws inspiration from her Haitian roots, crafting music that transcends borders. Her journey from Haiti to the US and now the UK shapes her art with a strong sense of identity. Known for her storytelling and social consciousness, Germa blends vocal and stringed harmonies with influences from various folk traditions. Her second album, Borderlines & Bloodlines, explores themes of ancestry and heritage, draws from inspirational literature, reflecting on the beauty and complexities of Haitian identity.
"Sounds unlike anything else out there" Songlines Magazine
Photo credit: Ibi Keita
Frankie Archer
Contribution to co-production and mixing with Jim Moray for Frankie’s debut album. The album will include mostly traditional English music framed with digitally manipulated sounds.
Feminist electrofolk musician and producer, and Guardian 'One to Watch' Frankie Archer’s latest EP Pressure and Persuasion tells the stories of four women and girls from centuries past who navigate the same expectations that are put on women today. It encompasses joy, bravery, defiance and helplessness, and challenges ideas about how women's stories are told and perceived. Frankie Archer’s imaginative and bold mash of electro alt-trad shows her Northumbrian fiddle roots, her deep love of electronic music and her immersion in soulful folk songs from the North East of England and around the world. Mark Radcliffe (BBC Radio 2) described her music as “fascinating and Intoxicating”. Her unique, fresh sound has being featured by The Guardian, NME, Clash Magazine, Tradfolk and Fatea.
Since winning the Christian Raphael Prize and releasing her debut EP Never So Red in 2023, she has played on Later... with Jools Holland, been featured in BBC Two’s Glastonbury coverage, and toured the UK and Ireland.
Photo credit: Rob Irish
Janice Burns & Jon Doran
Purchase of a new microphone for a live recording project, starting in 2025 to help elevate the sound. The project will involve Janice and Jon recording and filming traditional songs in scenic or historic locations.
Janice Burns and Jon Doran are an award-winning Anglo-Scottish duo who came together after discovering a shared love of traditional music. Their songs tell vivid stories about the nature of life and our place in the world. Janice and Jon’s "clever and uncluttered musical storytelling" (Songlines) comes alive through tight vocal harmonies and sensitive interplay between mandolin, bouzouki and guitar. Their arrangements have a spellbinding presence and an understated energy that transports songs from the pages of books and manuscripts into the imagination of the listener.
Archie Churchhill Moss
This funding will support the costs of a research and development trip to Lafayette, Louisiana and Houston, Texas for three weeks in May 2025 to study Cajun and Zydeco music.
Widely regarded as one of the best players of English traditional folk, Archie has worked as a session musician for some of the UK’s top folk acts (Cara Dillon, Eliza Carthy, Blair Dunlop), as well as performing with the trio, Moore, Moss, Rutter – the outfit which saw him receive the coveted BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award in 2011.
With a contemporary approach to composition and arrangement Archie has developed a style of playing that draws as much influence from the tradition as it does modern popular music. His engaging teaching style comes from a wealth of experience in his position as senior lecturer in Folk Music at Leeds College of Music and teaching on the National Youth Folk Ensemble.
Georgie and Alana
This funding will support travel costs for Georgie and Alana’s 2025 Spring Tour in England and Scotland. This will include six gigs and three workshops in venues across the UK.
Georgie Buchanan (singer/harpist) and Alana Middleton (singer/fiddle player).
An unmissable collaboration between two stalwarts of the Leeds contemporary folk scene, together they craft expressive musical landscapes of acapella harmonies, shimmering instrumentals, and storytelling that speaks of a heartfelt connection with the natural world. They perform traditional songs, material from Georgie’s album Wise as a Fool and co-written compositions, inspired by voyages to the Outer Hebrides, tales of ancient Celtic Goddesses and great singers from Peggy Seeger to Joni Mitchell.
Photo credit: @nico.effe
RE:VULVA
The micro-grant will cover the cost of filming and editing a music video for Re-vulva’s debut single ‘Girls And Their Toys’, an uplifting feminist folk anthem.
RE:VULVA features Janice Burns on mandolin, Holly Clarke on vocals and guitar, Cathy Geldard on fiddle and Amy Thatcher on accordion, synth and drum pad. They reclaim the best classic folk tunes and refashion these and their own compositions with a squirt of millennial pop nostalgia. Each performance promises to be as sparkling as a brand new vagazzle....
Something Sleeps
Contribution towards dedicated pre-production time to finalise the material for the second album.
London based dream-folk band Something Sleeps features songwriters Fiona Fey and Rey Yusuf, known for their vocal harmonies and emotionally provocative lyrics. Intricately flowing songs in vocal harmony wind their way through soulful string arrangements by Monica Viñoly (Violin) and Josh Considine (Cello). With a warm and playful sense of humour they entertain with their on stage antics.
The ensemble add their distinctive voices to modern day folk song, penning socially conscious original material. Something Sleeps continue the tradition of using folk song to protest and question the status quo.
Suntou Susso
Contribution towards purchasing a new, professional standard, custom-made djembe, made by Wooden Roots. Suntou’s djembe supports Suntou's income as a performing artist and a teacher.
A multi-instrumentalist, kora player, producer, composer, singer, songwriter and teacher Suntou is from The Gambia and was born a Griot. His primary instrument, the kora is a harp-lute with 22 strings and is unique to the Griots of the Mandinka people. Coming from a 700-year-old tradition, Griots play an important cultural role as peacekeepers and oral historians, transmitting and preserving a people's culture through the generations using song, music and poetry.
Jordan Aikin & Quercus
Support for the recording and filming of a new EP in Newcastle, with new compositions inspired by his family’s diaspora to Tyneside.
Jordan is a multi-instrumentalist and composer from Newcastle Upon Tyne, he is mostly heard performing on the Great Highland Bagpipes and Whistle. Specialising in traditional music, Jordan plays in a wide-ranging variety of ensembles performing throughout the UK and abroad most noted for playing with the progressive folk sextet, Pons Aelius, Jon Doran and The Northern Assembly as well as his own project, Jordan Aikin and Quercus. He has also toured and played with The Tannahill Weavers, The Chieftains and Andre Rieu. In 2016 and 2018, Jordan had the privilege of representing the UK on tours across France and Australia in the Flowers of Peace concert series, which commemorated ANZAC involvement in World War One. Jordan is also a highly skilled educator with experience teaching on the Folkworks programme at Sage Gateshead and is a main instrumental tutor on the Folk and Traditional Music Degree at Newcastle University.
These Micro Grants are just one of many ways in which the English Folk Dance and Song Society supports professional folk artists.
