Welcome to the Folk Viola website

Folk Viola started off as a passion, became my profession and then the title of my doctoral thesis in ethnomusicology at the University of Sheffield, England. The viola in folk music is ridiculously hard to investigate, because, like the violin, it is commonly referred by the name 'fiddle' in folk circles. The connection is not reciprocal, since unfortunately discussions and literature about the fiddle tend to mean specifically 'violin'. To complicate things, many audience members, including journalists, can't tell the difference... This means that there is no written history to speak of, so I undertook an ethnographic study of folk viola players and their music, mainly situated in the North of England.

Here you will find some of the who, what and where of folk viola playing. There are details of folk viola players and their bands, links to related websites and a couple of papers I gave at academic conferences. I am still performing regularly, in Britain with East Handed and in Italy with Tashbain, playing klezmer and Balkan folk music. I teach viola & violin for Sheffield Music Service and ethnomusicology at the University of Sheffield.