Preliminary information about the 2008 Festival is below.
Every year the International Pipe and Tabor Festival brings together taborers and like-minded musicians from all over the country to explore and celebrate the instrument, its history and its music.
The instrument has its origins in the small one-handed bone flutes of ancient times and in Gloucestershire there is evidence for over 1000 years of its unique music.
This year we are working in collaboration with two other festivals:-
- Gloucester 1000 (to mark 1000 years since the foundation of Gloucestershire)
- Gloucester Medieval Fayre
The events will be held along Westgate Street and around the Cathedral.
The Festival has three mains strands:-
- International: Bringing guest artists from parallel traditions in Europe;
- Medieval: The heyday of the instrument in England;
- Morris: The pipe and tabor survived to modern times as the prime instrument for this Cotswold tradition.
Our programme includes concerts, public performances, wandering minstrels, morris dancing, master-classes and workshops, including beginners sessions and a children’s event. Much of the event is in costume and in public. One aim is to promote the instrument and we do our best to make it easily accessible and interesting.
It is a small festival but important in its field. We are twinned with the Festa del Flabiols in Arbucies Catalunya which is the only other international festival for the instrument.
Draft Programme v4.0 (updated 12 March 2008) - Click here for a printable copy containing full details (PDF, 30KB)
Friday
2 - 4pm Symposium - Folk Museum, Westgate Street
4 - 5.50pm Medieval Music (Workshop)
7.30 - 11pm Taborers Social, Conservative Club (Buffet and
informal performance)
Saturday
9.00 on Registration, St Nicholas Church
9.15 Medieval Music (Workshop)
10am Opening, Gloucester Cross
10 - 12 Street Performance, Westgate
10 - 12noon Dance Tour – morris and medieval.
Walking tour; Westgate Street and Cathedral Close with Gloucestershire Morris Men and Our Guests
12 noon Taborers Performance, St Nicholas Church,
Westgate Street
1 - 2pm Lunch Break
2 - 3pm Pipe and tabor beginners' workshop, St Nicholas Church (Pipes available)
2 - 3pm Street Performance, Westgate
3.30pm Procession,
Cathedral to the Cross
4pm Big Dub -
Dance and Massed pipe and tabor, The Cross
4.45pm AGM, Conservative Club
5.20pm Taborers Feast (Price included in Festival ticket)
7.30 - 11.30pm Edi Be Thu, Medieval Music Concert, St Nicholas Church (Taborers and Guests, Newent Choral Society, Gloucester Waites)
Sunday
10 - 11am Music – Guest Musician
(Workshop)
11 - 12noon Playing for Dance (Workshop looking at techniques of playing pipe and tabor for three styles of dance; Early Dance, Playford and Morris)
12 - 1pm Lunch Session - Fountain
1 - 3pm Taborers Session, Fountain?
Ticket Pricing
Festival Ticket; £25 (non-members), £20 (members); includes Feast
Workshops; £10 (includes tabor pipe), £5 (if you bring your own pipe)
Edi Be Thu Medieval Concert; £5
Guest Artists - TBD
Chair - Steve Rowley - Contact Phone: 01453 763181
Festival Co-ordinator - Bill Tuck Contact Phone: 0780 305 2723
Treasurer - Rob Guest
Secretary - Gillian Guest
Symposium - Gwilym Davies
The 2006 Festival report is here and 2007's is here. The pictures on this page came from the first Gloucester Festival held in 1999.