Details of the forum’s meetings
Frank Kidson (1855-1926) was a key player in the explosion of interest in traditional song and music in late Victorian and Edwardian England, and his pioneering book Traditional Tunes (1891) was one of the three founding works of what became the first Folk Song Revival. As well as collecting songs in the field, he amassed … Read more
It is a long way off yet, but I can share the news that Mossy Christian and Megan Wisdom have invited the TSF to hold a conference in the lovely city of Lincoln in the spring of 2027. We will let you know how the plans unfold.
We have confirmed that we will be holding a conference on the 10th October 2026 at Leeds Central Library. We will be issuing a call for papers shortly, but if you have an idea for a talk on Folk Song in the North of England please get in touch. Frank Kidson (1855-1926) was a key … Read more
We are happy to say that we have a venue for a song session after the conference. We will be at The Folk of Gloucester (https://www.gloucestercivictrust.org/the-folk-home/), a fascinating museum and a lovely building. There will be a bar and a café, more details to follow. If you are coming to the conference, it would be … Read more
Broadside Day 2026 will be on 14th February at the University of Sheffield. Please save the date.
We are excited to say that we have booked the wonderful Portico Library (https://www.theportico.org.uk/) in Manchester for our next Spring Conference 2025, where we will be using the Dome Room. The event will take place on the 18th April 2025 and the topic is “Women and Song”. Please save the date – we expect this … Read more
CALL FOR PAPERS Folk Songs in the archive – Where can we find them, and are they safe? When the Traditional Song Forum was formed in January 1998 the key topic of discussion was how we could make the many different archives of traditional song more available to researchers. In the years since, much has … Read more
It is a matter of great concern to us that we are finding it very difficult to get people to volunteer presentations for our meetings. We have been enormously successful in providing a platform for people to talk about their interests in folk song, as our back-catalogue and our videos on YouTube testify. Though some … Read more
Editing the videos of the Sheffield Conference was a steep learning curve for your only moderately tech-savvy Secretary, but they are now complete and can be found on the Presentations at Past Meetings page. Thank you to all the speakers at this event, which was well attended, despite the train strike that kept Steve away … Read more
The live study day in Gloucester on Saturday 13 May was well attended and those who took part told us that they had enjoyed the event and found it useful. This was despite the train strikes which prevented some people attending, including our principal speaker, Steve Roud. Some hastily arranged technical work-arounds allowed him to … Read more