English Dance and Song Winter 2018
This article was published in English Dance and Song, the magazine of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The world’s oldest magazine for folk music and dance, EDS was first published in 1936 and is essential reading for anyone with a passion for folk arts.
In 2017, EFDSS launched Musicians in Museums, a new three-year project as part of its Artists’ Development programme for the English folk arts. Katy Spicer, EFDSS’ Chief Executive and Artistic Director, tells us more about the project – and about one of these artists and her work.
Musicians in Museums, funded by Help Musicians UK, is enabling six folk artists to explore creative and learning opportunities at three museums across the country – the National Coal Mining Museum for England in Wakefield, the National Maritime Museum in London and the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading.
Each musician is delving into creative links between the tangible culture and history of the museum’s collections and artefacts, and the intangible culture and history of folk songs and tunes. The residencies draw on the artists’ extensive range of experience and talents as educators and creative musicians. Each artist will work over an extended period at Musicians in Museums © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. cecilsharphouse.org EDS WINTER 2018 11 EFDSS © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. his or her chosen museum, and within their museum’s local community, to engage as many people as possible with the museum and with folk music.
Here, we focus on one particular artist – singer, bodhran player and choir leader Aimée Leonard – and her work at the National Maritime Museum to re-position 19th-century explorer John Rae in the history of polar exploration.
Aimée is taking her inspiration from her fellow Orcadian, the surgeon and Arctic explorer, Dr John Rae. In 1854, Rae discovered the outcome of the ill-fated attempt by Sir John Franklin and his men to navigate the final section of the North West Passage in 1845. Rae was the first British person to gather the evidence that they had not survived. His understanding of the importance of communicating with the native Inuits led him to discover the fate of the Franklin exploration – that the starving explorers had become so desperate to survive that they had resorted to cannibalism. But polite Victorian society was not ready to hear this. Rae was ostracised, whereas Franklin’s fate was seen as a romantic failure and was celebrated in songs and stories – a PR coup which owed a lot to the efforts of his highly dedicated and well-connected widow.
In August and September 2018, Aimée ran a series of three workshops at the National Maritime Museum, inviting anyone aged 14 or above to join the process of creating a new song to celebrate John Rae. The result was a choir with participants ranging widely in age and in levels of singing experience. As part of the collaborative composition process, Aimée worked with her singers on other songs – including Lady Franklin’s Lament for Her Husband, a ballad which was popular in the years after his expedition’s disappearance.
As is appropriate for a celebration of John Rae’s life of exploration and discovery, this project extends well beyond English and British traditions. Aimée feels that Rae should not be remembered alone, as his relationship with the Inuit people was a huge part of his story. Their reputation was tarnished alongside Rae’s, and their history has been misrepresented.
So Aimée is working with members of the Inuit community in Nunavut to make sure that this project also celebrates the unrecognised history of the Inuit people. Consequently, Inuit words were incorporated into Tullimentan Night, the new song that she has composed.
Aimée led the first performance of Tullimentan Night: a song for John Rae, at the opening of the museum’s Polar Worlds Gallery in September. She also arranged for Orcadian traditional musician Jennifer Wrigley to bring John Rae’s own fiddle from Stromness Museum to London, and to perform her own Air to John Rae on it in the new Polar Gallery.
“Folk songs are artefacts – living, breathing, singing artefacts”, Aimée told The Scotsman for a feature article about her work at the National Maritime Museum.
This Musicians in Museums project has so far successfully engaged new audiences and active participants with traditional song, and with their connected culture and history – both tangible and intangible.
The Musicians in Museums are: Bryony Griffith and Andy Seward, at the National Coal Mining Museum for England, Yorkshire; Jackie Oates and Pete Flood at the Museum of English Rural Life, Berkshire; Aimée Leonard and Joe Danks at the National Maritime Museum, London.
