"Is there, or should there be an organisation to develop British folk music, song and dance in Wales, as exist in other parts of the UK."

No there isn't and there isn't one anywhere else in the UK.

"There are organisations to develop Welsh folk music, song and dance in Wales but this appears to be at the expense of everything else."

I think that there is us, trac < www.trac-cymru.org > and noone else. There are societies like the Welsh Folk Dance Society or The Welsh Folk Song Society but they are not development organisations and stick to one part of the traditional arts. Believe me it is not at the expense of other folk art forms. We work with our indigenous traditions, across all of Wales in both English and Welsh as a development organisation to increase interest, awareness and participation. We also work to develop sustainable models for our aspiring professionals to make a living at it and work across many artforms where there is a relationship with Wales and its traditions. I think you might be confusing Wales with a Socialist Balkan Republic.

"I believe we need some expertise in audience development co-ordination and direction of effort and input into education, otherwise what we hold dearly may die with us."

You are right, which is why with WOMEX coming to Cardiff next year we are all focusing on how we can use this as a catalyst to build audiences and win the trust of our venues to bring folk music into the mainstream of their booking policy. What we are finding very difficult to overcome is the way that Wales does not receive the generic marketing that the rest of the UK seems to and that consequently we are having to find new ways of describing folk music in order to bring audiences to it. This is not in isolation, Folk21 is a facebook discussion addressing the ageing profile of the folk promoters in the UK generally. If we do not engage new audiences and musicians then you are right, our traditions may indeed die on our watch which would be massively irresponsible, which is why organisations like trac and Folkworks exist.

"Public funding, in principal which I am against, I think that entertainment should be self funding. But should the Arts Council of Wales have some sort of obligation to find suitable projects to enhance the musical well being of all the nation not just those who go to the opera, yes we do Italian as well as welsh but if you only speak English, tough.
I would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions."

Entertainment is privately funded, art however isn't. And even the Stereophonics learnt their performance and writing skills in publicly funded venues and at a publicly funded school. So did Martyn Joseph and my brothers Bernard and Gerard KilBride. Even bands who pride themselves on not applying for grants receive most of their work performing at publicly funded venues and events. Public funding is a good thing and funding folk song and not missiles is even better.

The Arts Council of Wales does indeed have a duty to enhance the musical well being of the nation, however they are not a delivery body so if only opera lovers apply for money then only opera lovers' needs are served. The latest issue of ontrac, our in house magazine, has a whole page devoted to just that: how ACW funds projects and how anybody can go about making an application, even English speakers, or Somali speakers, or Urdu, Pashtun, and so on.

"First, I think the Welsh language organisations are doing a great job with limited resources."

There are no Welsh language organisations, even Bwrdd yr Iaith Cymraeg who spend millions on promoting the use of Welsh are bilingual.

"I suppose what I would like to see is a body promoting English language folk."

Then form one.

"Singer songwriters, musicians and dance sides. Developing new venues, perhaps a series of village hall concerts in various parts of the country then feeding back how the content and marketing were decided on and the effectiveness, maybe a new magazine incorporating what is going on in concerts, training, education links, festivals and of course folk clubs which I believe are the core. The development of new festivals here in Wales and the acquisition of a residential centre with training, concert and recording facilities."

All of which are being addressed by a number of organisations and which we in trac are trying to get into a more co-ordinated plan. Even acquiring a residential centre isn't too far out of reach and it could have concert facilities, although there are loads of concert halls already here and loads of recording studios.

We in trac would prefer to see something more inclusive, that celebrated diversity and recognised the many elements of our indigenous traditions and those that have come here with other populations. What we definitely don't want to see is a deliberate reinforcement of existing divisions, north-south, urban-rural, Cymro-Anglo, etc.

To quote the former director of CADMAD when talking about the Chinese community in Cardiff. 'We have had so many community artists coming in and asking us to explore our Chineseness, what we would really be interested in would be a project that asks us to examine the fact that we are from Cardiff and Welsh and have our Chinese traditions as well!'

By all means look round for a British folk development agency or start your own. You might find it more interesting to talk to people here first and see if there isn't a more constructive conversation first.

Danny KilBride
cyfarwyddydd@trac-cymru.org