Who are we?

Directors

Patrons

Trustees

Staff

Volunteers

The East Anglian Traditional Music Trust was founded in 2000 by the co-directors Katie and John Howson. As a charitable trust, it is managed by a Board of Trustees. Also part of the team are a part-time administrator, a growing number of volunteers and our patrons ...

Directors

Katie Howson (Artistic Director & General Manager) is a musician, dancer, teacher and researcher. She has led English-style ceilidh bands including Old Hat Dance Band and Katie's Quartet and is now a member of the new band PolkaWorks. She has taught courses on melodeon and traditional music across the country, including for Hands on Music In Oxfordshire, Folkworks in the north east, and as far away as Aberdeen and the Netherlands. She is also a historian and ex primary teacher.

John Howson (Artistic Director & Archivist) is a musician, singer, researcher and designer. In 1984 he founded the Veteran recording label which is internationally recognised as the leading specialist in the traditional music and song of the British Isles. Veteran was originally set up to make available recordings John had made during fieldwork in Suffolk, but has since expanded to include archive recordings and active singers from Cornwall to Yorkshire. John's field recordings are now deposited in the British Museum National Sound Library.

Katie (melodeon) and John (banjo) started playing the local music alongside Oscar Woods in Suffolk and Billy Bennington in Norfolk in the late 1970s. Together with dulcimer player Reg Reader, they founded the Old Hat Concert Party in the early 1980s, which was a unique collaboration of traditional musicians, who became known all over the U.K. The East Anglian Traditional Music Trust is one way in which to ensure the music, singing and dancing reach a wider audience and carry on in the future. Much of Katie and John's work as directors of the Trust is done in a voluntary capacity.

Co-directors John Howson (left) and Katie Howson (right)

with EATMT's orginal patron and traditional singer Tony Harvey (centre).

Patrons

When we set up the Trust in 2000, we asked local singer and farmer Tony Harvey to be our patron. Tony sadly died in 2006, by which time we had two new patrons: Libby Purves and Paul Heiney, who are well-known broadcasters and writers with long-standing links in East Anglia. They have lived in Suffolk for many years and are great supporters of rural traditions.

In 2007 we welcomed four new patrons: Mark Murphy and Lesley Dolphin, who are both well known broadcasters on BBC Radio Suffolk, and Gloria and Trevor Buckley, who are involved in the running of three Traveller sites in the eastern region. All four are active supporters of the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust.

Left to right:

EATMT co-director John Howson and Libby Purves at the launch of the Norfolk Playback project and exhibition in April 2005

Mark Murphy and Lesley Dolphin at the Friends of EATMT Christmas Party, 2007

Gloria Buckley presenting a trophy at the Stepdance Day, 2008

We were delighted to have Tony Harvey as our patron when we founded the Trust in 2000, but were very sad, when, in early 2006 Tony died suddenly. He was from farming stock in central Suffolk and had a deep involvement in the region's rural community. Growing up on a farm, Tony found some of the old farmworkers knew some amazing old ballads, and for the past forty or so years, he had been singing some of them himself.

See the Profiles section of this website for further details about Tony.

Trustees

At present there are five Trustees, who meet four times a year, but work throughout the year to support and promote the work of the Trust.

Ivan Cutting is a theatre musician, writer and director who helped set

up Eastern Angles, the regional touring theatre company for East Anglia,

in 1982 and is now their Artistic Director. Local tunes and songs (often

supplied by Katie and John) have featured prominently in many of the

shows. He also runs Playwrights East, a scheme for developing local

writers around Norwich and was awarded an honorary doctor of letters

by the University of East Anglia through Suffolk College in 2004.

Malcolm Taylor is the Library Director of the English Folk Dance & Song

Society, based at Cecil Sharp House in London, where he has worked for

nearly thirty  years. In 2002 he received an OBE in recognition of his

outstanding contribution to music librarianship and heritage.

Miriam Stead is Heritage and Arts Manager for Essex County Council

and was formerly Director of the Museum of East Anglian Life in Suffolk.

She is the current Chair of the board of Trustees.

Frances Collinson is a freelance museum and heritage educator

and advisor. She was formerly  Collections Officer at the Roots of Norfolk

museum at  Gressenhall in Norfolk. She runs a regular acappella singing

group and organises an annual folk dance festival in Norfolk.

Peter Dodd is an accountant specialising in charities and the entertainment

industry.He was formerly Deputy Chief Executive for Suffolk ACRE.  He's also

been seen behind a melodeon and underneath a flowery morris dancer's hat!

He is currently the Honorary Treasurer of the board of Trustees.

Staff

We have an office within the Museum of East Anglian Life site in Stowmarket, Suffolk. Katie works there most days, and twice a week is joined by:

Alex Bartholomew, our part-time administrator, who joined the team in 2001 with no background in traditional music, but lots of enthusiasm. She still has bags of enthusiasm, and has also taken to folk music like a duck to water!

All in a day's work! Alex Bartholomew investigates an old custom at the EATMT

Winter Tales event in 2004. Wassail Cup made by Hedingham Fair.

Volunteers

We have a team of great volunteers, who help us regularly with preparing

newsletter mail-outs and Friends information, and also with events, by

setting out venues, stewarding, catering, fundraising etc. We also have a

few people with more specialised talents, such as photography and

music transcription. Do get in touch - we're always glad to welcome

new volunteers!

Some of our regular band of envelope-stuffers working on a newsletter

mail-out. Bring on the coffee and cakes!

The team of volunteer stewards and compere Shirley Harry (second from left)

outside Edgar's Farmhouse, on the Traditional Music Day 2004.

Many of the photographs on this website have been taken by supporters of EATMT, including John Halliday, Chris Gill and Peter Gaskin.  We're being very kind and not showing you photographs of them in action!