Yorkshire Folk Arts: News: Harvest Home

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Harvest Home at Ulley

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		Harvest Home A special production in aid of Ulley Parish Hall Restoration Words and Music from a Traditional Harvest
		with Jim Boyes — Lester Simpson — Fi Fraser Keith Kendrick — Jo Freya — Georgina Boyes Holy Trinity Parish Church, Ulley 29 September: 7.30 pm Tickets £8.00 / £6.00 Contact: 01709 375 063 By kind permission of Ulley PPC in aid of Ulley Parish Hall Restoration For hundreds of years, the harvest was the climax of the agricultural year - the time marked by heaviest labour and most intense celebration for the whole community. Music played an important part in this season of work. As harvesters cut and bound the sheaves, and during their short periods of rest at mealtimes, old songs made their customary appearance and new tunes were learnt from migrant workers. Customs and tasks of the harvest field were depicted in songs. And when the harvest was eventually gathered, there was song and music at the huge supper that was Harvest Home. It's an image that stays with us. Even today, when crops are cut by machine, the metaphor of the communal harvest recurs powerfully in contemporary song. Harvest Home uses the voices of participants to draw a picture in words and music of the work of harvesting - the excitement of a first chance to earn an adult wage and the arrival of new faces to 'take the corn', the 'downright slavery' of threshing, the toasts and singing of the 'harvest frolic', gale beer, cakes and new boots for the children, and the bloody harvest of the First War. It includes stories and songs, histories of old customs and even a recipe. Written by Georgina Boyes, Harvest Home features Jim Boyes and Lester Simpson of Coope Boyes and Simpson, Fi Fraser and Jo Freya of the Old Swan Band and the Fraser Sisters, and Georgina Boyes. There's also a special re-union associated this production of Harvest Home which sees the fine singer and musician, Keith Kendrick, singing with Jim Boyes and Lester Simpson — as they did in the legendary Derbyshire trio, Tup. Originally commissioned by Sidmouth International Festival of Folk Music for performance at the Pavilion Theatre, Harvest Home has toured widely and a version of the production adapted for radio, featuring songs and music by Martin Carthy, Eliza Carthy, Coope, Boyes and Simpson, Fi Fraser and Georgina Boyes was also broadcast on BBC Radio 2. "The folklorist, Georgina Boyes, has come up with a splendid seasonal pot pourri celebrating the gathering of the crops. For centuries, the security of knowing the community larder was stocked for another year sparked off the most important jollification of the rural social calendar. Harvest Home roams through the vast stock of song, superstition and story that has accrued down the centuries. It also recalls the tough labour that often preceded the party." The Guardian Contact: Georgina Boyes: 01709 375 063 Email: georgina@nomasters.co.uk http://www.coopeboyesandsimpson.co.uk/ http://www.nomasters.co.uk/ *28 August 2005*
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