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(2005) Festival
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THE
17th (2005) BELHAVEN BEST DUNBAR TRADITIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL Our 17th annual event was the best supported yet. Amongst the overseas contingent was a festival organiser from Canada and a programme presenter from Australian radio's equivalent of the BBC.
This year we received 6 entries for the Open Music Competition and from as far away as Kelso and Teeside. An increase of 500%!! The Children’s Workshop, led by Lana McEwan needed a full complement of tutors to deal with the large turnout of willing learners! The committee can look back to September 2005 and congratulate itself with providing the local community with another highly entertaining and musically varied weekend, well supported by locals and the increasing number of visitors from UK and abroad. Many new acts appeared in 2005; The Midden, Rallion, Welcome the Stranger, Mighty Fine Pair and The Soft Shoe Skiffle Band. All performed very well and the public feedback means we will be inviting several of them back in 2006. The Children’s Workshop was a great success. We needed more tutors than expected to cope with demand, and the children spent a very productive 2 hours in the company of our skilled teachers led by Lana McEwan, Joanna Cockburn, Emma Crooks, Gordon Ainslie and Johnny Stewart learning keyboard and stringed instruments. The Open Music competition was won by Barry Hood a local musician who writes his own music and lyrics Building on 2004, The Ceilidh Dance and Final Fling were excellently supported, and we will continue to have ceilidh events throughout 2006 leading up to this year’s festival in September, fostering the continued support for traditional music and dance in Dunbar.
On February 26th there is a ceilidh afternoon in the Barns Ness Hotel between 2-6pm. In March and May an evening of music and quiz and a ceilidh dance will be held. On the last Sunday in July, what is now becoming an annual event will take place at West Barns Bowling Club a ceilidh afternoon which coincides with a special weekend at Belhaven Caravan Park. Our Canadian visitor was Brad McEwan from The Mill-Race Festival in Cambridge, Ontario. Brad contacted us through the website. Although he visits festivals in England annually he had never been to Scotland. His response to Dunbar was “Yours is a very warm and friendly festival, and I enjoyed myself”.
From Australia we had Barbara, she stayed for the whole weekend and interviewed and recorded several of our gigs to be broadcast on her return to Oz. So the Dunbar Music Festival continues to spread it’s name far and wide. And
to finish with our annual slogan. We look forward to welcoming faces
old and new to Dunbar in 2006. Beautifully scenically and musically!
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