Топик: Welsh traditional music

Neil has contributed three pieces to the festival. The first is straight traditional music for accordion, guitar and bodhran. The second is an original tune that is decidedly contemporary, adventuring into a global turf while still maintaining a distinct Welsh air to it. The third is another traditional tune (title unknown), but with the accompaniment of classical guitar, it takes on a new and different feeling.

Nansi Richards plays orally learned melodies and variations with clarity and passion. Her variations are vibrant, ringing out with the sound only a triple-strung harp can make. She also plays the more common single-strung harp beautifully on several of the tracks.

There are many reasons for this renewed self-confidence; the growing appetite for the music of other cultures, a degree of political autonomy and, not least, the success of those who did devote themselves to the cause of Welsh. They may not have produced much great music, but they assured that not only is the language surviving, people can converse in it in some security, relax and just get on with life.

So they are beginning to look about them, hack their way through the overgrown and almost forgotten paths to the spring of their traditional music. It's still flowing. The new Rough Guide to the Music of Wales CD opens with a harp tune by Llio Rhydderch, who was brought up in a master-pupil teaching tradition that stretches back to the fourteenth century. There's also a recording she made of her teacher Nansi Richards, who was steeped in the aesthetic and technique of eighteenth century harpers. What is striking and refreshing about both players is their power. If you find most Celtic harp music plinking and fey, the strength as well as the beauty of this ancient music will be a welcome surprise.

The Welsh tradition is untouched," says Neil Woollard, gleefully. "So the music is more open to interpretation. I know we've got the perfect opportunity here, setting the parameters of what you can do.

Tradition" is the organic element of world culture. Pop music by its very nature is disposable. The only future for a great pop song is as nostalgia. The tradition however is timeless and recyclable and is renewed as each generation discovers its roots. - Billy Bragg, musician