Maddie has been working full-time as a creative freelancer since 2020, focusing around using music for inclusion, education and community engagement.

 

Workshops and Sessions

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Maddie offers various workshops and sessions with different community organisations

and festivals across the UK. Maddie’s workshops are engaging, accessible and are a way for

her to share her love of folk music with others.

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Maddie offers workshops for children, adults, families, and people with learning disabilities.

These workshops have been described as “Aspiration raising” and are an opportunity for people to connect with folk and traditional music.

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Maddie runs workshops on songwriting, music for well-being, music and movement within

the early years, connecting to traditional music, using drones, interpretation of traditional

song and introduction to traditional instrumentation. Maddie offers these both in person

and online in settings including schools, youth groups and collages to festivals and day services.

 

One-to-one tuition

Maddie offers one-to-one tuition in singing and songwriting. Having learnt through

the aural tradition, Maddie teaches by ear, and her approach is reflective and learner lead.

Maddie is fully DBS checked, and can offer sessions either in person in Leeds City Centre, or online. . Session costs are on a sliding scale and concessions are available.

 

​Lectures and Talks

Maddie has been invited to speak at conferences including ASME Medical Convention and

the National Rural Touring Convention. Maddie has previously guessed lectured at Leeds

Conservatoire speaking about LGBTQ+ representation and history in the music industry.

 

Partners and collaborations

Under the Stars - Maddie runs Weekly songwriting workshops with The Sparkle Sistaz, a band for women with learning disabilities.

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Leeds LGBTQ+ Community Consortium – Maddie offers Songwriting workshops for older, disabled and isolated members of the LGBTQ+ community

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“Maddie’s warmth, encouragement and positivity has made me

feel better about myself. These workshops have also been one of

the first ways I have really felt like part of the queer community.”

 

Highlights Rural Touring – offering folk and traditional music workshops

in primary schools across Cumbria and Northumbria.

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Kirklees and Calderdale Recovery and Wellbeing Collage – creating and facilitating “finding the musical me” a course that uses musical

principles to help people who are struggling with their mental

health.

 

Woven in Kirklees – Workshop delivery using traditional music to

connect to the history of the textile industry.

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Creative Scene – Working collaboratively with children aged 0-5 in

Batley, to write a song as part of the “One Fine Day” project.

 

Edshift CIC – Maddie worked as a 1-1 ‘Spotlight Practitioner’ Offering

creative sessions for children in Calderdale effected by domestic and

sexual violence.

 

Grass Roots Batley – Offering early years music sessions with an

organisation in Batley aiming to improve health and wellbeing in Batley

through community engagement.

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A word from Maddie:

“For me, folk music is, in its essence, about community and

accessibility. When traditional songs were being performed in their

original contexts by their original source singers, it would have 

been ridiculous to think that things like understanding of music

theory or notated music would be a barrier to access. My work as a

community musician is about breaking down the barriers that have

been created in the folk scene, so that folk music and activist

song writing is accessible and welcoming to all.”