All-Age Folk Weekend Course
BEAM was our family-friendly folk weekend course that ran from 2008 to 2017, with more than a hundred folk musicians from all over Wales coming together to play, sing, and dance! It was Trac Cymru’s flagship annual event, featuring some of the nation’s top traditional music tutors. Moving between locations in Anglesey, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthen, the course welcomed an equal mix of Welsh-speakers, learners and non-Welsh-speakers making BEAM an inclusive, bilingual space to practise language skills too.
Young musicians were able to see that learning is a lifelong passion and pleasure, as they joyfully practised alongside parents and grandparents. It was from these vibrant events that created a spinoff to enable all the teenage participants to have a folk weekend of their own, Gwerin Gwallgo, which was followed by Gwerin Iau for the youngest children.
Through the Big Experiment, many wonderful new projects sprang to life: we met Gwen Mairi, who went on to join our 10 Mewn Bws project, which led to recording opportunities as a Welsh folk harpist as well as tutoring the Youth Folk Ensemble of Wales; we met singer and flautist Huw Evans who also joined 10 Mewn Bws, and Jess Ward who has since released two albums of harp and songs; Tune Clubs sprang up in Machynlleth and Llantwit Major, run by Big Experiment regulars; and some of Wales’ leading contemporary folk musicians, such as Vri’s Aneirin Jones and Jordan Price Williams, learned and developed alongside more experienced hands at these memorable weekends.