I want to talk to you about the recently established Cornish National Music Archive. How and why was this formed?
The inspiration really came from the Cornish Music Guild. This was set up in the 1980s to highlight the work of Cornish musicians and composers and create a platform that would bring their work to a wider audience through concerts and publications. In the process of doing this a small archive of material relating to Cornish music and musicians was collected together. The organisation eventually ceased to be active and the remaining trustees approached Dr Garry Tregidga of the Institute of Cornish Studies and myself, representing Lowender Peran, to see if we would take joint ownership of the archive material. The idea was for a statutory / voluntary organisation partnership to take responsibility for the archive.
In practice the Cornish Music Guild archive was already held by Kresen Kernow but now that ownership had passed to the partnership we were able to lodge it formally with them and catalogue it properly. In the process of doing this we realised that the Cornish Music Guild Archive could be used as a basis for a modern archive of Cornish Music. We started to explore the idea in more detail with a series of symposiums at Lowender Peran exploring different different aspects of music in Cornwall. The first symposium was held in 2015 and has been held each year since.
One of the driving forces has been the idea that a modern archive should be easily accessible, interactive and in multimedia format. Music of course lends itself particularly to presentation through a mixture of sounds, videos, images and text. This accessibility is provided through our website, but we also maintain a backup of digital files and have an arrangement with Kresen Kernow to deposit hard copy materials as appropriate.
The second driving force was the formal recognition of Cornish people and their distinctive culture as a National Minority by the U.K. Government in 2014 [Under the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the protection of National Minorities]. This encouraged us to embrace a broad approach as a Cornish National Music Archive to the musical cultures of Cornwall and its diasporic communities.
By the end of 2019 we had our funding in place with the support of Cornwall Heritage Trust, Gorsedh Kernow and the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. We were due to launch the project in the Spring of 2020 just as the global pandemic hit. On the one hand it was a bitter disappointment not to have the launches, workshop and live events. On the other hand, the series of lockdowns forced our hands into learning new skills and ways of doing things which were particularly in tune with the tech we needed for the archive
Could you tell us more about who is involved, and how their specialist interests benefit the overall mission?
The Cornish National Music Archive is led by a working group of four people: Dr Garry Tregidga, Dr Kate Neale, Tony Mansell and myself. Our individual background and interests range from Brass Bands to Carols, Choirs and Traditional Music. This enabled us to quickly populate the archive with a large amount of material with not only the music but the stories and images behind the individual performers and bands involved.
Although these genres represent the obvious streams of Cornish musical tradition the opportunity and desirability to be eclectic was recognised from the outset. It is for this reason that we built into the project a way for a variety of people with different interests and backgrounds to join us as contributors to the archive.
For example Seamus Carey provided us with an article introducing Aphex Twin. His electronica and techno music placed him on the world stage but as a person he remains enigmatic to the point of being a contemporary myth. Scratch the surface of his music, however and you find the influence of the Cornish landscape and a sprinkling of titles in Cornish. We are also delighted to have an entry with the story of Cornish rock hero “Big Al Hodge” sent to us by his son Luke. Cornwall lost Al Hodge in 2006 but the digital network and social media have seen his heritage kept alive with a burgeoning volume of videos and recordings.
What were your initial aims and expectations for the project?
We had an extremely tight project business plan with clear targets, time scales and measured outcomes. All of which was a lot more fun and satisfying than that sounds! In essence we wished to capture Cornwall’s musical heritage and make this widely known and accessible. Our aim was to have 1000 entries within six months, to reach 500 people through direct contact and have 500 contacts a month through the website and social media. In the event we greatly superseded these targets.
Now, being officially out there for two years. How have you found the response?
Well, we continue to be amazed at how well it has been received and supported. In some respects we have been in the right place at the right time. The impact of Cornish National Minority Status was seen in the Devolution Deal set out by the U.K. Government for Cornwall in 2015. There was a section devoted to developing understanding of Cornish distinctiveness. Whilst this was initially focussed on tangible heritage there was a natural progression to a wider cultural base including music so that we fitted in very nicely.
In regards to the Diaspora: Have you found Cornish music from peoples who had migrated away for work, or better opportunities?
Dr. Katie Neale is of course our specialist here with her research into Cornish Carols and their importance in the Diaspora. It certainly seems to be religious music that the miner’s took with them on their migrations. Having said that they also took their sense of distinctive identity with them and the songs that went with this. Local 19th and early 20th century newspapers carried reports from Cornish gatherings around featuring Trelawny of course but we do see Camborne Hill etc creeping in there. As archives around the globe digitise and become available online so more material bubbles up. Christmas traditions of the Cornish miners are recorded in the Wisconsin Archive and include a wassail and Geeze Dancers.
The Diaspora is also a part of modern Cornish identity and it is good to have representation from people like Jim Wearne. Jim has written many songs both about Cornwall and his experience as a Cornish American. A good example of Cornish connectivity happened a couple of years ago when Jim joined forces with the Hurling tradition in St Columb and created a folk ballad from the chorus sung as the winning goal scorer is returned held shoulder high.
Over the past two years, what has been a stand-out project that you’ve delivered?
It is difficult to single out projects and the lockdowns impacted heavily upon what we did. The Cornish Wassail was great fun. We were unable to hold our usual Wassail at Tremough Campus courtesy of the Institute of Cornish Studies so we organised an online one. People contributed to the ceremony and the song by video from around the globe and we edited it together to create a video of the whole event.
We did a similar project with the Boscastle Breakdown. This is a step dance, a Scoot dance, obviously from Boscastle (although it’s as much from Padstow than it is from Boscastle.) We taught the tune online and invited banjo players to capture their own arrangement on mobile phone and send this in. We framed this as a tribute to an outfit called the Goonhavern Banjo Band who were very popular in Cornwall in the postwar years.
What was effectively our first live project was the Music from the Clay Country. This stands out as it was a very good way of exploring and presenting Cornish Music. We captured a wide range of tunes, songs and music generally related to or inspired by the Clay Country together with the stories of the people and bands involved. The project was celebrated with an event at Wheal Martyn Museum with Imerys Choir, St Dennis Band, Richard Trethewey and the Rescorla Band. The highlight of the day for me, was the St Dennis Band playing Hannah Hawken’s arrangement of the traditional Snail Creep tune.
What would you like to see the Cornish National Archive do in 2023?
Personally, I still have quite a backlog of traditional material I would like to see posted on to the web archive. I am also aware of a large number of songs in Cornish that I would like to capture. Other members of the team will have their own, parallel, aspiration. It would certainly be nice to capture more videos for the archive as this is a very popular medium for both listening to music and learning new material. We are also looking at the possibility of another area based project, this time looking at the Music of the Roseland Peninsula, so what this space.