Folk Critique + Cambridge Companion to Folk Music – launch event

‘These things were on the walls in Tudor times: some of them are really old, some not so old. But that tradition of discussing song, which I would love to find traces of – there must be some traces but, like with a lot of vernacular culture, they evaporate.’

Please join us for a double launch, celebrating the publication of Folk Critique, a new pamphlet from Ross Cole and the Fair Organ collective; and the Cambridge Companion to Folk Music (edited by Ross Cole), a groundbreaking new collection of essays on traditional culture and its continuing power in today’s world.

The evening will include a discussion of folk revivalism, nationalism, resistance and what it means to take an attitude of ‘folk critique’; performances from Angeline Morrison, the Black British Folk Collective, Mataio Austin-Dean and Jacken Elswyth; and readings from Aisha Farr and Grace Connolly Linden.

We hope attendees will stay to have a drink and a chat afterwards.

Generously supported by The Leverhulme Trust.

Mataio Austin-Dean & Ula Taylor-Reilly: Mataio Austin-Dean & Ula Taylor-Reilly Mataio Austin-Dean and Ula Taylor-Reilly are artists and musicians who collaborate to perform English folksong with a focus on radical, decolonial, and feminist interpretations of the material.

The Black British Folk Collective: The Black British Folk Collective The Black British Folk Collective (BBFC) is a new collective founded by musicians and artists Angeline Morrison, Bianca Wilson, and Marcus MacDonald. Together, they seek to centre Black narratives in British folk, and to nurture folk’s existing Black community.

Ross Cole: Ross Cole Ross Cole is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Leeds and author of The Folk: Music, Modernity, and the Political Imagination (University of California Press, 2021), which was awarded the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Bruno Nettl Prize. In 2024 he received a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize from the Leverhulme Trust. He is editor of The Cambridge Companion to Folk Music (Cambridge University Press, 2026) and currently at work on a book on vaporwave.

Grace Connolly Linden: Grace Connolly Linden Grace Connolly Linden is a poet and teacher. Her creative and critical work can be found in Prototype 5, the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry and Datableed Zine. Her pamphlet Well was published by Veer2. She is the convenor and a member of the creative research collective the Fair Organ.

Jacken Elswyth: Jacken Elswyth Jacken Elswyth is a London-based folk musician, banjo player, and instrument builder. In her music making she is focused on exploring traditional tunes, developing extrapolations on folk styles and techniques, and investigating drone, ambience, and improvisation within and beyond folk music. She plays and records solo and in collaboration - with Shovel Dance Collective, Sullow, and others. She also builds and repairs banjos and other instruments, with a focus on folk craft and vernacular styles. This practice and these instruments inform and facilitate her music making. https://jackenelswyth.bandcamp.com/

Aisha Farr: Aisha Farr Aisha Farr is an artist and writer who makes paintings, weavings, and poems that interrelate. Some of her miniature paintings, and ongoing details of her project on the presence of the Parsi in the British archive, can be seen on aishafarr.com

Angeline Morrison: Angeline Morrison Angeline Morrison is a founder member of the Black British Folk Collective. Recently listed by MOJO as one of their “voices taking folk into the future”, Angeline is an English traditional singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose work combines a deep love of tradition, with a deep respect for the hidden Black voices of Old Albion. Believing in the power of enchantment for decoloniality, Angeline channels Albion’s forgotten Black Ancestors, re-storying their lives into song. Angeline has performed solo at Glastonbury Festival, on BBC 2’s Later with Jools Holland, and with The Sorrow Songs Band at the BBC Proms in 2025.

Marcus MacDonald: Marcus MacDonald Marcus MacDonald is a passionate South London-based grower, community organiser, tour manager, aspiring Banjo player and cultural advocate. He has extensive experience navigating the intersection of food sovereignty, racial justice, land justice, music, and community organising. Marcus brings a unique perspective as a working-class queer. Marcus is a core collective member of Land In Our Names and is one of the coordinators at their Dandelion growing project based at Glengall Wharf Gardens. Marcus is also part of many other collectives including Black Obsidian Sound System and The Black British Folk Collective.

Bianca Wilson: Bianca Wilson Bianca Wilson, also known as Island Girl, is a South London–born multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter whose work centers the banjo and its African diasporic histories. A founding member of The Pegwells and a member of Calliope, her practice brings together performance, research and education to share the banjo’s story and broaden access to the instrument within Black communities.