I’m absolutely delighted to announce that Arts Council England have awarded True North Music some National Lottery Project Grants funding to support our 2023 local live music series here in West Yorkshire. This will come from their dedicated Grassroots Live Music funding strand, which comes to an end next spring. I put in a lot of work over the last couple of months to make an outstanding application, and I’m so pleased that it’s paid off. All entirely deserved of course! I’m excited to be putting together a bigger and better programme than ever, which as usual will feature world class folk-roots, bluegrass and Americana artists from the UK, USA and Canada (and maybe more!).
Starting in spring 2023, we will present a series of concerts as well as occasional participatory workshops, community outreach sessions and online events, all featuring some of the finest acoustic musicians working today. Most of the concerts and workshops will take place at The Carlile Institute in Meltham, with a couple of events planned for Marsden Mechanics. Both of these are historic, welcoming and friendly community-owned and -run venues in the Huddersfield area, where most of our local gigs have taken place over the last six years. We will also take the music out into the community for a number of outreach events, bringing the joy and fun of bluegrass and folk music to people of all ages who might not usually be able to come to our gigs. This grant funding support will enable us to pay our artists better (especially important in these very difficult times for independent musicians) and will help to cover many of our costs (venue hire, insurance, sound engineers, extra PA kit, posters and flyers etc). It will also help me to plan these events with more confidence and certainty, in what remains a very challenging time for grassroots music.
We still need your support though (the whole plan is based on decent ticket sales!), so please follow our social media, share gig news with your friends, sign up to our mailing list and book tickets for the events! (once we get to that point). As always, we will have excellent gender parity in our programme (in line with our Keychange pledge), and we’re working on other ways to bring more diversity into the line-up wherever possible. Thanks again to Arts Council England for this practical support and indeed for this public recognition of True North Music’s musical excellence and inclusive approach. We also thank YOU and all our followers and friends across the local and wider grassroots music community, for your support over the last eight years. Stay tuned for more news coming very soon about our 2023 Yorkshire music series – we cannot wait to announce the first wave of artist bookings, and we’re so looking forward to what will be another joyful year of grassroots live music.
