FIRST EVER THRIDDINGSFEST

Everyone has heard of the great national Eisteddfod of Wales – an annual week of celebrations that takes place in different towns and cities throughout Wales – celebrating Wales’s great literary and musical traditions, and above all using the Welsh Language.

There can be little doubt that the annual Eisteddfod – now one of the great cultural festivals of Europe – has done much to identify and strengthen Welsh Language and culture and help this proud nation achieve a degree of devolved independence us regions of England have cause to envy.

way back as 1919, Professor Fredrick Moorman, the brilliant Yorkshire dialect scholar, poet and storyteller, suggested that there should be a Yorkshire version of an annual Eisteddfod, celebrating the rich cultural heritage of Yorkshire, which by the way, has population larger than that of Wales.

The Yorkshire Society, along with Vicki Warner the creator and organiser, are now planning the first ever Yorkshire Eisteddfod but, not to offend our friends in Wales, we have coined a new name based on two Yorkshire dialect words – ThriddingsFest – literally a festival of the Ridings, the three ancient Anglo-Viking division of the kingdom of Jorvik, the three former Counties of historic Yorkshire which were only finally abolished by decree of the Westminster Government in 1974.

But as in Wales, ThriddingsFest will be about the future, not the past, and will focus (though not exclusively so) on young people keen to showcase their talent in performance – poets, writers, actors, singers and musicians, whether individuals or groups. All will be amateurs or young aspiring professional performers seeking an opportunity to showcase their talents. The only requirement is that their work should be inspired by Yorkshire – its landscape, history and people.

We also want people of different faiths and backgrounds who live and work in our Region, whether part of our communities for several generations or more recently arrived, to celebrate their own ethnic heritage – albeit in a Yorkshire context.

WHERE AND WHEN?
As part of our 2025 Yorkshire Day celebrations, we plan to run a small-scale pilot which, if successful, can quickly and easily be replicated in other parts of Yorkshire in years to come. So, in a quiet suburb of Bradford, close to the spa town of Ilkley on the edge of Yorkshire’s iconic Ilkley Moor, St John’s Church in Ben Rhydding will be the venue of the first ever ThriddingsFest over the 2nd and 3rd August.

WANT TO PERFORM?
The five activities chosen will be Dance & Drama, Spoken Word, Poetry, Yorkshire language and Dialect and Song. Any individual or group keen to take part in the pilot event in should initially contact the ThriddingsFest Co-ordinate Vicki Warner at TheThriddingsFestGroup@outlook.com .
It was suggested that Yorkshire Day might end with a Gala concert of Yorkshire music to include Northern Score, this time given by the newly revived Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra, itself a symbol of the cultural and musical renaissance within the Yorkshire Region. Thanks to great support from Bradford Council and Trafalgar Entertainment, negotiations with the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra led to the possibility of Northern Score being part of a concert of all Yorkshire music, to also be the big Opening Event at this iconic venue. Support has also come from the Leeds International Piano Competition Committee with the availability of one of their prize-winners, renown concert pianist Yuanfan Yang, and to add local colour an appearance of the Bantam of the Opera Choir of Bradford City AFC, trained by the BBC Singers.

So we now have what is billed as Yorkshire Calling – a moment of exciting cultural renaissance captured by two leading creatives of our Region, poet Ian Macmillan and composer Ben Crick in what is going to be an unmissable, iconic event in Yorkshire’s cultural history. Tickets for this major Regional event are now on sale at
https://booking.trafalgartickets.com/en/bradford-live-bradford/buyingflow/tickets/29797/58692/