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Interview with MG Boulter on the Estuary Song experience

We meet MG Boulter, supporter of Leigh Folk Festival, part of the festival's Estuary Songwriting Project, and co-curator of the Harbour Song & Sundown Arts stage at this year's festival. We catch up with him on the Estuary Songwriting Project to find out what it was really like being in a 'Big Brother house' style situation with 7 other musicians in their week-long residency at Chalkwell Hall.

Q: You spent a week writing music inspired by the Thames Estuary. This stretch of water that has provided so much cultural inspiration over the years from Joseph Conrad and Constable all the way through to the likes of Dr Feelgood. Why do you think that is? A: The Thames Estuary is large-scale nature and I think that has a lot to do with it. For artists, that big nature brings out those age-old human questions of what are we actually doing on this planet. So the Thames is a stimulant in that respect. The landscape is diverse throughout the year and can be quiet, picturesque, desolate, industrial and so on. All these facets have been and are still being explored by artists of all genres. Q: How did you find the experience of collaborating with other musicians to write new material? A: At first I was a little apprehensive because although I knew a lot of the musicians who were part of the project I had never collaborated with them in song writing. Looking back I can gladly say it was fantastic and I liked working with the different approaches each of them had. I collaborated significantly with three of the other artists and learnt a lot from that process.  

Q: The project is dedicated to Jack Forbes, the late folk musician who was a local stalwart of the folk community. How do you think the folk tradition will be carried on to new generations? A: I knew Jack and he was always welcoming and supportive of what I was doing. I don’t consider myself a folk musician in the traditional sense but folk to me is the interpretation of human experience and story so I see modern folk music and its progression as musicians cataloguing and telling tale of our times now. Q: The Isle of Grain power station chimney was demolished during your songwriting week and as a group you watched it, which resulted in you writing a song about it. How was that as an experience? A: It was an incredibly fun and spontaneous experience. We watched the chimney fall and then myself and Lucy Farrell got back to Chalkwell Hall and went straight to work on a song that ended up as ‘Explosion Day’. We sat on a bench in Chalkwell Park with the grounds staff cutting hedges all about us. I was obsessed with calling it ‘Execution Day’ but Lucy thankfully steered me in a less gloomy direction. Lucy would play a chord and then I would suggest the next one and then we muddled through the lyrics swapping lines and ideas. It was liberating to just throw ideas against the metaphorical wall and get the song complete.  

MG Boulter appears alongside Alasdair Roberts, Lucy Farrell, Hazel Askew, Roshi Nasehi, Nick Pynn, Kate Waterfield and Piers Haslam on Friday 23 June at Wesley Methodist Church for the final performance of the suite of Estuary Songwriting Project songs. Tickets are available at http://music.leighfolkfestival.com/merch/estuary-songwriting-project-concert-tickets

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Feature on BBC Radio

The lovely Mike Brocken has featured Leigh Folk Festival and its 25th anniversary vinyl release (which features exclusive music from the Estuary Songwriting Project) on his ‘Folkscene’ BBC Merseyside show. You can listen again here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05330gh

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Great coverage from the Essex Echo on our final Estuary Songwriting concert!

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Folk Awards winners at Leigh Folk Festival

The Estuary Songwriting Project is proud to announce that 3 out of the 8 artists involved in this project were winners at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2017.

Best Group was awarded to The Furrow Collective (Alasdair Roberts and Lucy Farrell) and Best Album was awarded to Songs of Separation (Hazel Askew).

The artists chosen for our project were deliberately picked for their strong songwriting chops and we’re delighted that three out of the 8 have been recognised by the Folk Awards.

If you’d like to see all 8 musicians perform their incredible body of new music about the Thames Estuary in Leigh-on-Sea, there will be a special final concert taking place as part of Leigh Folk Festival on Friday 23 June, Wesley Church, Leigh on Sea, doors 7.30pm / £10 plus booking fee. Visit music.leighfolkfestival.com .

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Feature in EFDSS Magazine!

We were lucky enough to be featured in the English Folk Dance & Song Society magazine thanks to artist Kate Waterfield.

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Listen now to ‘Tilbury Jack’

▶ Tilbury Jack - The Estuary Song Writing Project by Leigh Folk Festival         

This preview track is one of the many fruits of a LFF Arts Council England funded project, featuring Hazel Askew, M.G. Boulter, Lucy Farrell, Piers Haslam, Roshi Nasehi, Nick Pynn, Alasdair Roberts, and Kate Waterfield. Previously unreleased. Recorded by John Hannon at No Studios, October 2016.

https://soundcloud.com/user-799639862/tilbury-jack

Hear more at our gig at Cecil Sharp House on 22 March: https://cecilsharphouse.org/csh-venue-hire/our-spaces/21-shared/shared-events/3966-the-estuary-songwriting-project

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Upcoming gig at Cecil Sharp House

Here at Leigh Folk Festival HQ we're really excited that our Estuary Songwriting Project is going to be showcased at Cecil Sharp House in London - an iconic venue in the folk world. (We popped in for a coffee recently and it gave us a thrill to see us listed in the programme!) Our artists - Alasdair Roberts, Nick Pynn, MG Boulter, Lucy Farrell, Roshi Nasehi, Kate Waterfield, Hazel Askew and Piers Haslam - are performing in March and you can buy your tickets here: http://cecilsharphouse.org/component/content/article/21-shared/shared-events/3966-the-estuary-songwriting-project 

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Tickets now on sale for London 2017 show

If you missed our Southend Pier gig, do not fear because tickets have gone on sale TODAY (14 October) for our next Estuary Songwriting Project event. On 22 March 2017, our 8 musicians will come together to perform their original Thames Estuary-inspired material in full. 

 With huge thanks to Cecil Sharp House for having us, and the support of Arts Council England and the EFDSS!

http://www.cecilsharphouse.org/component/content/article/21-shared/shared-events/3966-the-estuary-songwriting-project

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The project on film

The Estuary Songwriting Project has been put to film by Andy Delaney, film maker and director, and perfectly captures the 8 artists in their songwriting week and the first performance on Southend Pier in October. Take a look... https://vimeo.com/186687650

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Estuary song live on the pier

On Saturday 1 October, Southend Pier was buzzing. During the day, it had been host to a wealth of speakers and panellists on the music of the Thames Delta for the Estuary Festival, and the evening was dedicated to the Estuary Songwriting Project. This is a project very much steeped in Leigh-on-Sea. Organised by the Leigh Folk Festival to celebrate their 25th anniversary, the project has commissioned 8 folk musicians (two Leigh-on-Sea residents and the rest from around the UK) to write original music about the Thames Estuary. The Thames Estuary is a great source of inspiration; from Joseph Conrad and John Constable to Dr Feelgood, and it was the perfect venue to perform these news songs. Even if the pier trains were out of service... The 1.3mile trip out to sea on Southend Pier is always a fascinating one. You think the end of it is nearer than it is. The walk is long, with churning sea below you, and wind. Our 8 musicians and their trolleys full of gear (which included a HARP, guys) made it to the end of the pier, under a gloomy pink sky which suddenly got gobbled up by an enormous storm cloud. The rain hit the deck of the pier and I scrambled inside, feeling very much like I was on board a ship myself. The musicians gratefully ordered coffee, set up their instruments, soundchecked, and a very wet and bedraggled audience made their way into the 'Royal Pavilion' venue. I'll be really honest and say I've never really been a fan of this venue; it's a bit of a blank, corporate box and doesn't seem to be a creative space. But with good lighting, atmospheric shots of the estuary projected above the stage and the twinkly shore of Southend seafront blinking in the distance as it got dark, it became magical. The body of music penned by these 8 artists - written in a week's residency in Chalkwell Hall - is highly impressive. I was lucky enough to see a sneak preview of it during the residency, and was bowled over by the quality given it had been written in such a short space of time. But now, weeks later, it was rehearsed, tight, and actually quite an emotional experience. They sang of Dunkirk, Amy Johnson, pioneering aviator in the 1940s who crashed in the estuary, the wildlife that lives in our hometown where the Thames meets the sea. Below us, under the carpet and layers of wooden deck, the estuary swished around, the very thing that inspired them all to put pens to paper and bows to strings. Ships passed the pier, as they sang songs about the contents of containers. Birds flew over as they dedicated music to the Brent Geese that squawk and gabble on our mud. It felt very special indeed. You can see clips of the gig on the Leigh Folk Festival Instagram @leighfolkfestival, and photos from the event at www.facebook.com/leighfolkfestival. You can also follow the project on Twitter @estuarysongwritingproject The 8 musicians will be performing a concert of their Thames Estuary material in London in March 2017; tickets go on sale on 14 October at http://www.cecilsharphouse.org/

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Jack Forbes

The Leigh Folk Festival's 'Estuary Songwriting Project' kicked off earlier this month with a residential week involving a crack team of song-writers, all of whom have a previous association with the Festival - Alasdair Roberts, Lucy Farrell, M.G. Boulter, Roshi Nasehi, Piers Haslam, Hazel Askew, Nick Pynn and Kate Waterfield.  Their brief was to come up with a 45 minute performance piece broadly themed around the Thames Estuary - in the end it amounted to something like twice that length, which is a hint as to how productive it all was. And the quality of the work is quite extraordinary. It was a truly collaborative and harmonious time, and a privilege to be a 'fly on the wall' for all those lucky enough to have witnessed it. The project was dedicated to the late Jack Forbes, a local legend (pictured above), and stalwart of the folk scene in Southend. Jack was a prolific composer of songs themed around the estuary, and was particularly known for his 'folk theatre' productions of shows such as 'Down the Hill to the Old Town' and 'Rolling Down the River', which took its name from his most famous song, which has passed into popular tradition and travelled around the world. When the idea for a songwriting residency was first conceived, Jack seemed like a natural choice, and in fact the Festival's Artistic Director, Paul Collier, did contact him early this year, unaware of his fragile state of health, inviting him to take part. Sadly, this wasn't to be, and Jack passed away a few days later. From the outset the team was eager to include some of Jack's words in their work, and so his presence can be keenly felt in the compositions, with everyone feeling that the piece should form a fitting tribute to his memory.

Paul Collier, Artistic Director, Leigh Folk Festival The debut performance of the work will take place on Saturday October 1 in the Royal Pavilion at the 'wet' end of Southend Pier. This starts at 7.30pm, and will be one of the great highlights of the 'Sounds of the Thames Delta' event taking place there that weekend. Tickets are available on the door (space permitting) or in advance from: http://www.estuaryfestival.com/event/detail/the-estuary-songwriting-project-estuaryfestival

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Here’s a sneak preview of what our 8 artists got up to on their week’s residency. Hear the amazing material on Southend Pier on 1 October! Big thanks to Andy Delaney for this lovely promo. x

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Next up...

So, our 8 musicians have literally left the building at Chalkwell Hall and taken their instruments and their songbooks with them. From Sunday to Friday, they created original music together and after witnessing the preview on Wednesday night, we know it's going to be incredibly special. So what's next?

Our artists will all go back home, back to reality, and return to Leigh-on-Sea at the end of the month to record what they've written, and then perform the first of a trio of special gigs; on 1 October they will take to Southend Pier as part of Metal Culture's Estuary Festival, and perform their new music in its entirety.

Tickets are on sale here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/estuary-2016-festival-leigh-folk-festival-presents-the-estuary-songwriting-project-tickets-27000630613#tickets

And you can follow our updates on Twitter @estuarysong, on Instagram @leighfolkfestival and on our Leigh Folk Festival Facebook page www.facebook.com/leighfolkfestival

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"Waiting for the fall..."

The night was hot: close, muggy, with prosecco, chatter, and music in the air. A harp, violins, piano, guitars, lap steel, accordion: and of course, harmonious voices.

Our 8 musicians (Alasdair Roberts, MG Boulter, Roshi Nasehi, Lucy Farrell, Piers Haslam, Kate Waterfield, Nick Pynn and Hazel Askew) have been writing original music since Sunday 4 September and on Wednesday 7th, amazingly, they were able to perform to a selected audience some of the material. It couldn't have been more current - particularly given that some songs had been written that day.

The brief for the Estuary Songwriting Project, naturally, was to compose original music on a folk theme, inspired by the Thames Estuary. In a great bit of cosmic timing, the Isle of Grain power station chimney, a main icon in the view when looking out at the estuary from Leigh-on-Sea all the way to Shoeburyness, was scheduled to be demolished on 7 September at 11am.  

The artists were able to see the demolition: the chimney standing in a misty haze, crumbling from the middle, and disappearing in a pillar of smoke. A huge boom followed, a delay that thrilled and made everyone jump. Nick Pynn, who coincidentally lived in Westcliff over 25 years ago, said how funny it was that a landmark from his time living here was about to disappear entirely.

The musicians' performance at Chalkwell Hall on the evening of 7 September was a magical experience - not least because of Lucy Farrell's song about the Isle of Grain demolition with a rousing chorus of "Waiting for the fall..." - everyone in the room had seen the chimney fall earlier that day.

Everyone in the room felt part of their songwriting experience: here we were in the space where they have been writing, collaborating and creating for the past couple of days, hearing the music that is so fresh they're double-checking melodies before beginning, with scribbled notes and music stands. It could have felt shambolic but it didn't - it felt a privilege to be hearing music in its infancy, something the usual gig-goer is never privy to.

The first official performance of this unique body of material is on 1 October on Southend Pier as part of the Estuary Festival and you can buy your tickets here: http://www.estuaryfestival.com/event/detail/the-estuary-songwriting-project-estuaryfestival

More photos and updates are on www.facebook.com/leighfolkfestival and Instagram @leighfolkfestival

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Estuary visits...

Our 8 artists are settling into their week's songwriting workshop, based in Chalkwell Hall, a venue with incredible, panoramic views of the Thames Estuary, which is to provide inspiring for the original material they're composing for the project.

While the space is inspiring, with a nurturing, creative environment thanks to Metal Southend, who not only run it as a venue for their own 'Culture Labs' but have it as their offices, it's also good to explore your natural habitat when embarking on a project such as this.

The musicians have been commissioned to write original folk music based on the Thames Estuary, so what better than a day of field visits to the shore itself?

On 5 September, the musicians took a trip to the Crowstone, a looming, concrete obelisk in the sea just past Chalkwell. The stone marks the end of the Port of London Authority's jurisdiction; literally where the Thames meets the North Sea. The weather was suitably atmospheric (read: drizzly and foggy) for imagining the merchant ships of times gone past.

The team was then given a tour of Two Tree Island, a stone's throw from Leigh on Sea's railway line, accessible by causeway and home to much wildlife; a scene set perfectly by tour host Marc Outten of Essex Wildlife Trust.

As we see the musicians settle into the project, music is already being composed by our artists wich is incredibly exciting and bodes well for the material to come...

Thank you to our artists for photographs from the field visits; more to come later in the week!

Don’t forget to follow @leighfolkfestival on Instagram and @estuarysong on Twitter for the latest updates...

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The artists meet for the first time at their songwriting venue for the next week; Chalkwell Hall, home to Metal Culture who are providing not only space for creating music, but lab advice and Estuary views all week!

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Who’s involved? #8 - MG Boulter

M.G BOULTER is a talented songwriter, musician and singer from Leigh-on-Sea, who has been gaining a national reputation over the last few years.  A player of many stringed instruments, Matt has played alongside artists such as Conor Oberst, Neil McSweeney, Lucy Farrell, Duke and the King, Emily Portman and remains a long standing member of the Simone Felice Group.  Matt also continues to tour and record with his band, The Lucky Strikes.  “Gorgeous, in a word” – Uncut