Folk Singing Day

Suthering folk duo at Looe Valley Vineyard lead a day workshop exploring trad and modern folk songs

Julu Irvine and Heg Brignall, of folk duo Suthering, lead this joyful and engaging harmony singing day. Their hugely popular Suthering Singing Retreats come to Looe Valley Vineyard for a fun-filled day exploring singing traditional and contemporary folk songs in choral harmony.

The workshop will take place on the covered winery terrace at Looe Valley Vineyard. Tea and coffee for breaks is provided, and the ticket includes a complementary glass of wine at lunchtime. We don’t have a kitchen yet so please bring your own lunch, and dress warmly as it is an open air venue.

Tickets can be booked at https://www.looevalleyvineyard.co.uk/book-tour – please get the right ticket for your voice range as we are trying to get a good balance across the group. We can be a bit flexible so any queries, email [email protected].

You can find out more about Suthering here https://www.suthering.com/

About the workshop

The first part of the day will be dedicated to going through a full body warm up and learning some singing and breathing techniques. During this part of the workshop we will focus in on breathing, to include:

Exploring our own breath patterns and how they affect the voice.
Learn how our own body moves and how to access a responsive core
How vibrato affects style
Vowel matching for blended harmony singing
Applying the above approaches to folk singing
We will first put some of these techniques into practise using easy rounds and loops before we approach two, more complex arrangements of folk songs arranged by Heg and Julu, in four-part harmony. These arrangements aim to be more challenging pieces of music to explore the above techniques.

Scores and lyric sheets will be provided.

This workshop is for:
Choir singers with some experience who would like to explore the folk style
Singers who want to learn new approaches and techniques