Chris has been both a Folk Camp leader and musician, and staffed his first camp in 1979 at the age of 18 as a musician at Cartmel. He has played in and led many bands since then, and is equally at home calling or playing for a “circuit” ceilidh, or for the local EFDSS group dancing Playford. He mainly plays melodeon at camp, but fiddle was his first instrument and he can often be found singing and playing guitar late into the night.
In 2021, with musician Alastair Gavin I compiled, arranged and published The Unexpected Polka, a book of over 100 folk dance tunes for musicians of all levels. Every tune in this book has a newly written mostly easier second (and sometimes third) part, to encourage all musicians to join in. This book will be the basis for my workshops on camp and is available to buy on our website www.theunexpectedpolka.com. Also on the website are many play-along audio and video clips of tunes in the book.
I love a large music workshop which stays together for the whole morning and our book is designed exactly for this!
Piano Tuning: www.cjtuning.co.uk
Ceilidhs: chrisjewell99.wixsite.com/ceilidhs