Music of Cornwall

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Cornwall is a region in the southwest United Kingdom which has been historically Celtic, though Celtic-derived traditions had been moribund for some time before being revived during a late 20th century roots revival.

Music of the United Kingdom		Celtic music
History	Ethnicities
Early popular music	England	Brittany and Northern Spain
1950s and 60s	Scotland	Cornwall
1970s	Wales	Man
1980s	Northern Ireland	Ireland
1990s to present	Caribbean and Indian	Celtic Canada and Celtic America

1 Folk music
2 Modern scene
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

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Folk music

Cornish musicians have used a variety of traditional Celtic instruments, as well as imported mandolins, banjos and accordions. The bodhrán (crowdy crawn in Cornish) has remained especially popular for years. Old inscriptions and carvings in Cornwall (such as at Altarnun church at Bodmin moor) indicate that a line-up at that time might include an early fiddle (crowd), bombarde, bagpipes and harp [1].

Folk songs include "Sweet Nightingale".

Cornish dance music is especially known for the cushion dance from the 19th century, which was based on an old tune adapted for French court dances. The cushion dance was originally an aristocratic past-time, that eventually crossed over to the poor. The dance's popularity peaked in the early 1820s [2].

Cornish music festivals called troyl were common, and are analogous to the closely-related fest-noz of the Bretons.

In the later part of the 20th century, the temperance movement became a major part of Cornish culture. Along with it came choral traditions; many folk songs were adapted for carolling, hymnal singing. Eventually, processional bands appeared, leaving behind a legacy of marches and polkas [3].

Sport has also been an outlet for many Cornish folktunes, and Trelawney in particular has been taken up as a kind of unofficial national anthem by Cornish rugby fans.

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Modern scene

The most famous modern Cornish folk performer is likely the Cornish-Breton family band Anao Atao; other well-known musicians include the singer Brenda Wootton. The 1980s band Bucca is recognized as a major pioneer in the popularization of Cornish music.

The town of Cadgwith (on the Lizard Peninsula) is known for an informal, weekly gathering of singers; their material includes a number of common folk songs, as well as their anthem "The Robbers Retreat". The Camborne Town Band is a long-renowned band, formed in 1841 in a tin mining town. It has been estimated that there are over 100 bands playing mostly or exclusively cornish tunes in cornwall at present. As the traditional music corpus is not as large in some other countries (though still a great number of tunes) many bands will fill some specific niche in the style, giving great variation in an event.

The Cornwall Folk Festival has been held annually for more than three decades. Other notable festivals are the pan-celtic lowender perran and midsummer festival golowan. Numerous other festivals and annual events have a cornish music theme.

Cornwall has won the PanCeltic Song Contest three years in a row between 2003 and 2005.

2003: Naked Feet
2004: Keltyon Byw
2005: Krena [4]

Skwardya and Krena are linked by being fronted by Matthew Clarke. Both bands play rock, punk and garage music in the Cornish language.

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References

Mathieson, Kenny. "Wales, Isle of Man and England". 2001. In Mathieson, Kenny (Ed.), Celtic music, pp. 88-95. Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-623-8
Cornish music on www.kesson.com

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