Folk tunes to be 'enjoyed by future generations'

Katie Lawrence has been playing the violin since she was eight years old

A new collection of contemporary folk tunes will be "enjoyed by future generations to come", a heritage organisation has said.

The Katie Lawrence Tune Collection, which comprises 64 single-line melodies, was launched during the Celtic music festival Yn Chruinnaght.

Composed and collated by music teacher Katie Lawrence, with the tunes organised chronologically throughout her life, the project was funded by a Culture Vannin grant.

The organisation's music development officer Chloe Woolley said throughout her life Ms Lawrence had composed hundreds of pieces and the collection was "long awaited".

'Heartfelt melodies'

As a young fiddle player with Ramsey Grammar School folk group Paitchyn Vannin Katie was "beginning to emerge as a talented and prolific tune writer", and two of her pieces “Dooraght” and “Fochabers” had become well known as Manx dances, Dr Woolley said.

The collection would allow "more and more of her tunes" to become "absorbed into the living tradition", she added.

Ms Lawrence, who plays violin and piano, said that she had grown up within the Manx traditional music scene, and it was the people around her, as well as the island itself that she took inspiration from when creating her music.

She said while one piece was inspired by Peel Castle, and another by the beach in Glen Wyllin, she had also written music for weddings, birthdays, memorials and friends and family.

Folk music was something that she had "always had in my life" and her parents had first met at a folk club, she said.

Speaking of her love of the diversity within the genre she said: "I like how you can get these really heartfelt melodies, and you can get these roaring reels and jigs."

One hundred copies of the book have been published and her next project will be a volume Two, she adeed.