FAQs

Trac Cymru is a folk development organisation that nurtures, promotes and supports the traditional arts and culture of Wales. Its focus is on celebrating Wales’ music and dance traditions, developing performers from beginners to the international stage, stimulating interest, and making sure our traditional arts remain a relevant, core part of our vibrant cultural life and identity.

Trac Cymru was founded in 1997 by a group of folk musicians and supporters who shared a belief in the importance and value of our traditional culture, an awareness of its continuing relevance to the present, and a passion for sharing what these traditions have to offer.

Trac Cymru was formed out of a need to draw attention to and provide a development focus for Wales’ folk music and dance traditions, so that they might be supported and nurtured on a par with other classical and contemporary music and cultural genres.

Trac Cymru is for anyone with an interest in folk music and dance, from complete beginners, emerging artists and professionals, to local communities, schools and youth groups. We work with musicians, dancers, singers and supporters alike, sharing the best of what Welsh traditional arts have to offer.

If you’re interested in Welsh folk arts, whatever your age or stage, we have something to share with you.

Wales’ traditional arts are a foundation stone in our nation’s identity. Our music, song, cerdd dant, dance, and storytelling carry and express our distinctive history, languages, culture and way of life. These creative forms are an integral part of our culture, the values and emotions they express bind us together.

At Trac Cymru, we’re passionate about renewing and reinvigorating these forms of expression, both to inspire our younger generations and honour the craft of our tradition bearers. Without support and stimulation, these more traditional forms lose out investment and are in danger of becoming museum pieces, rather than a living folk tradition, which informs our contemporary culture and sense of identity.

Our folk music and dance traditions continue to delight and intrigue both at home and abroad. At Trac Cymru, we advocate on behalf of the sector with Government and core agencies to keep our folk culture firmly on the agenda alongside other forms. We also support amateur and professional musicians as well as audiences regardless of age, language and race and across borders; to access, celebrate and share in the very best representation of our folk music culture and ensure it remains at the core of Wales’ cultural heart and soul.

Trac Cymru engages and works in partnership on projects with many organisations and individuals, and with the range of specialist interest groups and societies which are part of the fabric of Wales’ folk scene. However, we have a strategic development role for the folk traditions of Wales as a whole, with a broader focus on folk arts and skill/career development.

While we are advocates of safeguarding the traditional folk forms, we also have a clear view to the future and actively encourage our young and emerging performers to develop the traditional forms to ensure that ours remains a living folk tradition.

We offer support, guidance and know how, but not direct funding. For showcase events, Trac Cymru will select suitable performers and bid for funding to enable travel and presentation costs; but we do not give grants directly to performers. Likewise, our training programmes and residential courses are subsidised to ensure that they remain accessible.