English fiddler Peter Cooper on BBC4 doc

Subject: English fiddler Peter Cooper on BBC4 doc
From: Pete_Standing
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 11:39 AM

The fiddle player Pete Cooper appears in a documentary on BBC4 this Wednesday 8th. The series is called "Lefties" and this partuclar programmes is subtitled Property is Theft". To quote from Pete's web site:-

"You can't escape your past. I'm featured in a new film about squatting in the 1970s, 'Property Is Theft', the first of a three-part BBC series Lefties , directed by Vanessa Engle, to be shown on BBC-4 on Wednesday 8 February 2006 (9pm-10pm). I lived in the squatting community in Villa Road, Brixton, back in the day, and took part in the fight to save the street, a fine mid-Victorian terrace, from demolition by Lambeth council. It's a great story. No footage survives of our street band at the time, 'Cuckoo's Nest', though we did (once) support the '101-ers', Joe Strummer's band before 'The Clash'. When Vanessa and her crew came to film Richard and me playing last summer, I sang 'The World Turned Upside Down' in honour of the occasion, and we've included Leon Rosselson's song about those famous 1640s squatters, the Diggers, on 'The Savage Hornpipe'."

For those who don't know him, Pete Cooper runs the London Fiddle School, specialises in the English and Irish traditions and is a very fine player and singer. For info on the series, check out Lefties
and Pete Cooper's web site is here. I saw Pete, amongst others, at the Strings at Witney workshop this last weekend. Other tutors were GAVIN DAVENPORT(of Crucible and Hekety) - Open Tunings for Guitar & Cittern, BRUCE MACGREGOR (of Blazzing Fiddles) - Scottish Fiddling, SARAH MATTHEWS - 'Ey upmi Duck! (fiddle tunes of Derbyshire) GILL REDMOND - Cellos Ancient & Modern and the extraordinary JOE TOWNSEND - Music of Roumania and Improvisation Skills.

For anyone wanting to improve their skills on acoustic instruments and singing, I can recommend the workships. The last two that I went on featured musicians such as Steve Tilston, Phil Beer, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan and Chris Foster - Martin Carthy has taught in the past too. For squeeze boxes, John Kirkpatrick, Tim van Eyken and John Spiers have been past tutors. Hands on Music can be found here