Immersive. Social. A week of music, dance, and new friendships.

Whether folk is your go-to, or you’re trying the genre for the first time, young musicians and singers are welcome to come and immerse themselves in folk music, song, and dance at the Folkworks Summer Schools.

The Summer School is based at Durham School, where young people can either choose to stay overnight as residential, or choose to be non-residential and be welcomed during the day. Our experienced and welcoming pastoral staff will look after the young people 24/7, supporting them to have a fantastic week. The venue has great facilities, good food, and homely, comfortable shared rooms.

Young people from both Youth and Junior Summer School will work towards an informal sharing performance for their friends and family on Friday 8 August.

What will you learn?
The 2025 Folkworks Summer School is open to musicians and singers. You don’t need to have played folk music before (your experience can be from any style of music), but you must already be comfortable playing your instrument/singing.

During the course, you will learn repertoire from a team of experienced folk music educators, who will share techniques, skills, and insight into exploring folk material, as well as ways to take these ideas forward and make them your own. Everyone will also have the chance to do some dancing! There will be lots of mixed-instrument ensemble workshops, as well as smaller groups and instrument specific sectionals, and classes will all be tailored specifically for the young people at the Summer School.

The tutor team will be working with both Youth and Junior Summer Schools across the week. Both age-groups will spend some time together, sharing some repertoire including the 2025 ‘big tunes’ and ‘big song’, but most of the workshops will be with the separate age-groups.

When enrolling, young people are asked to include their main instrument, as well as any other instruments played – please give us as much information as possible about your musical experience so far. We can cater for any acoustic instruments; players just need to have their own instrument.

If you have any questions about any of this, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Who is teaching?
We are delighted that Archie Churchill-Moss, Bevan Morris, Sarah Hayes, Rosie Hodgson, Dave Malkin and Grace Smith will be teaching at Summer Schools 2025.
Please see our Tutor Biographies to learn more about our tutors.