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HE HAS made forays into the realms of jazz, string quartets and even Chinese music. Now Alistair Anderson, concertina virtuoso, Northumbrian piper and tireless champion of the region's folk music, is touching base with a new album, Islands (White Meadow Records), a compendium of new material, traditional tunes and past compositions revisited.
He's also getting out to play a bit more, while remaining artistic director of the Folkworks music development agency, which he and Ros Rigby set up in 1988 and which has done much to bring traditional music to younger generations in the north of England. His co-musicians on the album include several former students of the traditional music degree course at Newcastle University, for which Folkworks was a catalyst, and of which he was head for four years.
"It's been about having fun - just good old tunes and really getting into them," he says of Islands, adding...