Distil England 1 will take place at Dillington House, Somerset from the 21st - 24th February, 2005.

Participants

John Dipper: John is an experienced and estabished workshop leader, mentor and teacher, giving individual and group instrumental lessons. His knowledge, experience and enthusiasm combine to make him a much sought-after tutor. John has delivered workshops for many major venues, festivals and organisatinos such as The Australian National Festival.

Rob Harbron: Composer and workshop leader, and a leading exponent of the English concertina. Works with the English Acoustic Collective, Dr Faustus and Tim van Eyken among others.

Miranda Rutter: Miranda is a former member of Jabadaw and in her duo with Martin Keats represented England in concert with Ricardo Tesi's 'Band Italia' at last year's Sidmouth Festival. She also plays and dances with Morris Offspring. As well as a great fiddler she is also a viola player who has recently formed a string quartet to play some of her own music.

Ian Stephenson: Ian is the guitarist with award winning band 422. He has played with Kathryn Tickell, Brian Finigan, Liz Doherty and is currently in his final year at the Folk Degree course at the Sage Gateshead.

Laurel Swift: Fiddler Laurel is a 2nd generation Morris dancer and folk musician. She plays fiddle in a duo with John Dipper and works in community venues, schools and festivals around the country as an tutor, performer and organiser of the Shooting Roots programme. She is an outstanding dancer, currently performing with Black Annis, North West team Chiltern Hundreds and Camden Clog. Laurel runs a music and dance company called NECTA and is a founding member and director of innovative Morris dance troupe Morris Offspring. Laurel is an excellent composer/arranger, with her new CD "Beam" showcasing some of her work.

Dave Townsend: Dave Townsend has been a professional musician and singer working in the area of traditional music since 1984, playing several instruments in various styles. Above all, Dave is a technical master and leading stylistic innovator on English Concertina. His playing of instrumental music from English tradition opens up a new world of vital and extraordinary music, performing forgotten treasures with the verve and passion associated with Celtic music. He is also a favourite workshop leader on a wide variety of subjects, especially English Concertina and West Gallery music. He is the director of Hands On Music Weekends, which provides a programme of instrumental music courses.

Dave Townsend's work with traditional music has frequently had an innovative edge, as with the mouldbreaking electric band Jumpleads, his development of new playing techniques for the concertina, the bizzarre acoustic duo The Blades, and the exploration of the lost world of West Gallery music through the formation of The Mellstock Band. He has taken his passion for the English tradition all over the world, including tours for the British Council, and has provided music for television, film and theatre. Credits include working as Musical Director for Sir Peter Hall's production Entertaining Strangers at The National Theatre, and arranging and performing music for the dance scenes in BBC TV's Pride and Prejudice.

Andy May: Andy is from Gateshead, Northeast England and has played Northumbrian pipes for 18 years or so. Having grown up surrounded by the traditional piping scene in Northumberland, alongside a more formal study of the piano, he completed a degree in music technology at the University of York in 2000, using pipes as his first instrument whilst furthering a study of jazz piano in Leeds. He turned professional in 2002 and currently tours with Jez Lowe and the Bad Pennies.

Pete Cooper: Pete performs, composes, teaches and writes about fiddle music. He is also a singer. It is as a fiddle teacher and workshop leader that Pete is best known to many. A stalwart of Hands On Music weekends in Witney, Oxfordshire, he’s also been a popular tutor at Folkworks events in the north-east of England since 1996, inspiring many of the new generation of brilliant young performers on the British folk scene.

Workshop Leaders

Dave Heath has written concertos and other major works which have been performed worldwide for, among others, James Galway, Nigel Kennedy, Piers Lane, Julian Lloyd-Webber, Clio Gould, and Evelyn Glennie. As a virtuoso flautist he has worked with many orchestras as well as in the contemporary and pop fields, with performers including Sting, William Orbit and others. From 1993 - 1996 Heath was Composer in Residence with the BT Scottish Ensemble, work which included his violin concerto The Celtic. In 1997, Heath arranged, orchestrated and conducted The Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Aly Bain and Karen Matheson in Phil Cunningham's Celtic Orchestral extravaganza The Highlands And Islands Suite, a performance which opened the Glasgow Celtic Connection Festival. Future projects include Gottlieb a work for solo organ, and an opera, Everyday Occurrence, a love affair set in the pit of an orchestra.

Timo Alakotila works primarily in the thriving contemporary Finnish folk music scene but is also expanding steadily into other areas, for example jazz and classical. He was a founder member of JPP. He works with Helsinki Pop & Jazz Conservatory as teacher of composition and music theory while simultaneously holding a similar post at the Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department, teaching improvisation, arranging, harmonium and piano. Since 1994, Timo has also been pianist, composer and arranger Aldargaz, the ensemble of one of Finland's top contemporary accordionists, Maria Kalaniemi. He is also an arranger, notably for Finnish vocal band, Varttinaa. One of Timo's biggest projects is "Folkmoods West", an extended four part work for big band, string orchestra, guitars and accordion. Another recent project has been the band May Monday with accordionist Karen Tweed.

Paul Dunmall is noted for his involvement in free improvisation, but has performed in a wide range of jazz settings, and in folk-jazz styles with Danny Thompson's Whatever. He lived in the US for some years playing with musicians like Alice Coltrane and Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, before returning to the UK. He has been for many years a member of the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, an improvising big band. He is also a member of Mujician with Keith Tippett [a tutor on Distil 1], and works with bassist Paul Rogers in a duo folk project.

Dillington is situated approximately 2 kilometres north of the small market town of Ilminster. Access is via two entrances - to the west off the B3168 Ilminster to Curry Rivel road; and from the east off the A3030 at Whitelackington. There are large signs at both entrances and Dillington is well signposted with "brown" tourist signs.

Dillington is not well served by public transport. It is possible to get to Ilminster by bus from Yeovil and Taunton and then by taxi from Ilminster to Dillington.

The nearest railway stations are Crewkerne (London Waterloo to Exeter via Salisbury) and Taunton (London Paddington via Reading). The fastest rail journey from London is to Taunton - 2 hours.