Who are we?

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 is a musician, dancer, teacher and researcher. She has led English-style ceilidh bands for many years, and has taught courses on melodeon and traditional music across the country, including for Hands on Music In Oxfordshire and Folkworks in the north east. She is a historian and ex primary teacher and has recently become a member of the board of Folk Arts England, the national folk music development organisation.

John Howson 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. 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.

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

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

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 six 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 has been librarian of the English Folk Dance & Song

Society, based at Cecil Sharp House in London, for over twenty years

and received an OBE in 2002 for services 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.

Bill Tamblyn is a freelance composer and music educator, and was previously

Head of Performance Arts at Colchester Institute, where he established a unit on

Traditional Music some years ago, as part of the music degree course.

Frances Collinson is 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 Deputy Chief Executive for Suffolk ACRE and was formerly a tax

accountant specialising in the entertainment industry.

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 a part-time administrator, Alex Bartholomew, 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 two great supporters of EATMT, John Halliday and Chris Gill.

We're being very kind and not showing you photographs of them in action!

Patrons

Last, but not least, we also have two patrons:

Libby Purves and Paul Heiney 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.

EATMT co-director John Howson (left) and patron Libby Purves

(right) at the launch of the Norfolk Playback project and exhibition

in April 2005.