I know very little of the course at Newcastle, but the implications of a lot of posters on this thread are that it is a course for performers aiming at paid work on the folk scene or whatever. Is that actually the case, or is it possible to go on the course to study folk music in an academic sort of way? Or, if not, are there any other university courses where you can do that? I mean, most universities provide an English Literature course of some kind, but they don't train the graduates to write novels; they run Creative Writing courses for that.
Also, to those not in the know, people are being very mealy-mouthed discussing all these graduates in a rather theoretical anonymous sort of way. let's have a list of names, I would be interested to try to spot some sort of house style as performers.