It’s not a zero sum game. I think it’s possible have album reviews and end-of-year-lists in newspapers and magazines *and* to push for making music tuition accessible for all. It’s not particularly about folk music: access to extracurricular music lessons - in England at least - is increasingly a postcode lottery favouring the middle class. This is why my friend - a classical musician - set this charity up to help poorer kids in Manchester access music:

Olympias Music Foundation

As for the EFDSS, I used to be a member but I’m not any more. I have mixed feelings about the whole ‘official’ youth folk tuition scene in England. Whilst it’s great it exists, and that parents who want their kids to learn to play folk music can access it (and I do worry that it’s mainly accessed by children whose parents are part of the folk scene) there’s always a risk it will produce identikit players and singers who do a very polite form of folk that ends up sounding like state-sanctioned music. I guess people like Lankum, who were probably Comhaltas kids, show that it doesn’t have to be that way.