10 years of True North Music! plus a look back at our 2023-24 live music series

It’s just over 10 years since my very first gig as a promoter, on 24th January 2015.  After a stellar start selling out that first concert in Sheffield featuring Cahalen Morrison & Eli West, it’s been a rollercoaster decade, promoting over 60 local gigs in Yorkshire and booking around 40 full UK tours for some of the finest bluegrass, Americana and folk-roots artists from the USA and Canada. I’m so appreciative of all the wonderful musicians I’ve worked with, all the dedicated folk who keep community venues running, and of course all you lovely people who bought gig tickets, tuned in online, donated to livestreams, bought artist merch and shared our social media posts. Thank you for supporting grassroots live music! We don’t have any live gigs coming up just at the moment, because I’m working on another couple of exciting projects – the release of my own EP of original songs (featuring several fabulous USA and UK musicians who you’ve seen at our gigs over the years!) and my upcoming podcast, featuring interviews with some fascinating women working in roots music. I do hope some of you will want to support one or both of these musical projects – please sign up to my mailing list on the right to be first to hear about all my music news (and for future gig announcements), and follow me on socials here.

In December I wrapped up True North Music’s 2023-24 local live music series, which was the most amazing cornucopia of folk-roots, bluegrass and Americana. We welcomed some of the finest roots artists from the UK, USA and Canada to perform concerts and lead workshops, including Jaywalkers, Gangstagrass, the Jake Blount trio, Mishra, Kris Drever, Golden Shoals and Evie Ladin & Sophie Wellington, just to name a few. We hosted ticketed workshops in fiddle, banjo, body percussion, harmony singing and Appalachian flatfooting, and delivered warmly received school workshops in fiddle, ukulele, body percussion, singing and tabla language! Our Huddersfield-area concerts and festival took place at the delightful community venues The Carlile Institute (in Meltham) and Marsden Mechanics. Check out the video highlights reel above for a taste of these wonderful musical occasions. We also want to add our appreciation to series sponsor Dark Woods Coffee and event sponsors Eagle Music Shop and the British Bluegrass Music Association. Most of all, we acknowledge the vital support from Arts Council England, whose National Lottery Project Grants funding made it possible for us to deliver such an excellent programme of events, and guarantee decent fees for artists, alongside the ticket income (which was also absolutely essential) and sponsorship contributions.