Traditional Music of Cornwall

Cornwall’s geographical position and historical maritime connections have helped to create a wonderful repertoire of both uniquely Cornish and shared tunes with other regions and countries. Explore some of the music, stories and surprising connections from the point of view of two curious musicians.

Watch the Cornish Trad YouTube channel for videos, channels and playlists.

For music knows no bounds

Cornish music absorbs it all, celebrating not isolation but connection with other countries and cultures.The Cornish Trad ‘About’ page We began blogging about Cornish traditional music alongside our own musical journey learning and playing tunes from Cornwall. We’ve always been ‘practitioners’ first. At first we learned and played what we were told was Celtic Cornish…

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The Cornish recordings in the British Library’s Fred Hamer Collection

We were recently approached by someone from the British Library’s music rights section letting us know about the digitisation of the recordings of folk and traditional music made by Fred Hamer in the 1950s and 60s. It’s always exciting to hear of news like this, as these recordings have never been publicly available before. But…

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“Accidental Mini Album” of Cornish fiddle music released on SoundCloud

Cornish fiddle player Neil McMahon (of Fools Rock amongst others) has recorded an “Accidental Mini Album” of Cornish traditional music played on the fiddle. Neil said “this weekend I inadvertently made a little album (sort of). It’s rough and ready, full of mistakes like proper folk belongs to be, entirely unpasturised and GM free.” Whilst…

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Feature interview with Hilary Coleman and Frances Bennett

Gwaryoryon (Playing People). L-R Hilary Coleman (Clarinet), Liz Davies (Accordion), Jo Tagney (Fiddle) (courtesy of Hilary Coleman). I interviewed Hilary Coleman and Frances Bennett over Zoom a few weeks ago about their journeys in Cornish traditional music. I asked them about their views of being performers, composers, teachers and leaders of a stellar list of…

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The story of Henry Jenner

https://youtu.be/-ZWfPD1fJrQ In 2018, MAGA, the Cornish Language Partnership, produced a short documentary film in Cornish about Henry Jenner (1848-1934). He successfully campaigned to get Cornwall recognised as a Celtic nation and prove Cornish is a living language, as well as helping to establish Gorsedh Kernow in 1928. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF),…

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