7. Music life

Music in all its forms has a substantial following. There are four symphony orchestras in London with international reputation, and other well-known ones are based in Birmingham, Bournemouth, Manchester and Liverpool. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has its orchestras. In addition, there are a number of specialized string and chamber orchestras, including the London Simfonietta, which performs contemporary music. British pop music groups appeal to audiences worldwide and have often set new trends in the development of popular music. Jazz, played in numerous clubs and public houses, has an enthusiastic following.

Some 240 professional arts festivals take place each year, including the Edinburgh International Festival; the Three Choirs Festival held annually for over 250 years in Gloucester, Worcester or Hereford; the Cheltenham Festival, devoted largely to contemporary British music, and the Llangollen International Music Festival.

The main London Opera companies are the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the English National Opera. Wales and Northern Ireland have their own companies.

The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden gives performances of opera and ballet throughout the year. The English National Opera Company performs operas, sung in English, at the London Coliseum. It also tours the provinces. The standard of performance is high. There is an opera season at Glyndebourne, Sussex (May or August).

There has been an extraordinary flowering of talent among British operatic singers. There are excellent touring opera companies, which give performances in most big cities.

There are several dance companies in Britain. Among them we can find London Festival Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Scottish Ballet (Glasgow), London Contemporary Dance Theatre, and Northern Ballet Theatre (Manchester).

Present-day concern with music is shown by the existence of something like a hundred summer schools of music, which cater for all grades of musicians, from the mere beginner to the skilled performer. These schools where a friendly atmosphere reigns, provide courses lasting from a weekend to 3-4 weeks.

Public support for the arts takes the form of government grants to independent agencies, of which the Arts Council of Great Britain is the most important. It gives financial help to opera, dance and drama companies, orchestras, the visual arts, and small touring theatres, experimental groups and many other organizations. A growing source of funds is sponsorship and patronage by industry and commerce. The British Council promotes knowledge of British culture and the English language overseas by initiating or supporting tours of British companies and artists.

8. Folk music

Folk music is a body of traditional music, originally transmitted orally. Many folk songs originated as a rhythmic accompaniment to manual work or to mark a specific ritual. Folk song is usually melodic, not harmonic, and the modes used are distinctive of the country of origin.

A burgeoning interest in ballad poetry in the later 18th century led to the discovery of a rich body of folk song in Europe.

Folklore – the stories saying, local custom songs, dances, etc., - handed down from generation to generation among the unsophisticated members of a race or nation.

Traditional folk song, in the style it was sung over one hundred years ago, is still popular with a lot of people/. There are traditional folk clubs in most towns. Even more popular is traditional Irish music. Groups like The Chieftains and Planxty play beautiful Irish tunes on traditional instruments.

Folk songs are the songs composed and sung by country people. The songs may be hundreds of years old, so nobody knows who originally composed them. Folk music is often music for dancing. In Britain it was traditionally played on instruments like a fiddle (another name for a violin), flute, bagpipes, accordion, concertina, etc.

The McCalmans is one of Scotland’s most popular folk groups. They have been playing together for along time and have many fans both in Scotland and throughout the world. Their three-part harmony singing and good humour win them friends wherever they perform.

In England the late 19th century saw a development in the transcribing and preserving of folk tunes by such people as the Rev Sabine Baring-Gould and Cecil Sharp. The Folk Song Society was founded in 1898 and became the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 1911; they censored much of their material. Rock guitarist Richard Thompson and groups such as The Pogues (formed in 1983) furthered the folk revival of the 1980s, and there was growing interest in roots, or world, music, encompassing traditional as well as modern music from many cultures.