Kathryn Tickell calls the tune for students

Date: 2004-03-08, Publication: The Journal

Folk musician Kathryn Tickell didnt have far to look when she was putting together a band for her latest tour - they were all in her classroom.

The Northumbrian pipe player has played around the world in a 20-year musical career, but for the last three years she has also been a part-time lecturer on Newcastle Universitys folk and traditional music degree course.

So when she was approached to take part in a tour that would see established musicians playing with up-and-coming artists, she turned to some of the students to form a band.

Now the four students - Katie Doherty, Ian Stephenson, Olivia Ross and Julian Batten - are swapping the lecture theatre for the tour bus as they rehearse for a six-date tour that will end with a special concert in the North-East.

Kathryn said: "These concerts usually have the younger people playing in the first half and then the more established act after that.

"But theres no fun in that. The whole excitement for me was doing it together, rehearsing the songs and playing them as a band.

"Well be doing some of my songs but also some of the songs theyve written, and thats really exciting for me.

"Since Ive been teaching Ive seen loads of people perform who are just amazing.

"Watching them develop musically and find their own voice has been one the great features of the course."

The tour has been arranged by the Yorkshire-based Nu Routes company, who have persuaded four of Britains best-selling folk acts to play with young and unknown musicians.

Initially, five dates were booked but none were in the North-East, so Kathryn added a concert at The Mart, in Rothbury, Northumberland, so that her friends and family could see the students play.

Twenty-year-old singer Katie Doherty, from Teesside, said: "Its really exciting. Kathryns letting us do some of our own songs."

Julian Batten - a 21-year-old from Dorset, said: "Ive never done anything like this. Im really excited."

Singer Olivia Ross, 30, from Scotland, and guitarist Ian Stephenson, 21, from North Yorkshire, make up the rest of the band.

Their tour begins on Wednesday in Pocklington, Yorkshire, and will then go on to Hebden Bridge, Matlock Bath, Bradford-on-Avon and Warwick. The Rothbury concert is on March 27.

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