An annual weekend of traditional music and a celebration of the session craic will go ahead this weekend, despite the island not being able to welcome guest musicians from across the water.

The Isle of Man Trad Music Weekend begins tomorrow night (Friday) and runs until Sunday and will see some of the pubs and bars across Douglas filled with guitars, whistles, accordions, banjos, fiddles and may more acoustic instruments, all playing trad folk music from the Isle of Man, Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere.

Under normal circumstances, the weekend would see session players come from all over the British Isles to meet up with fellow players in the island.

Nearly 50 musicians travelled to the island to take part in last year’s festival.

However, for obvious reasons, that will not be happening this year, so the organisers have made a few changes to the weekend’s festivities.

On Friday evening, the opening night will take place at Sir Norman’s Bar, on Douglas Promenade and the organisers have invited musicians of any genre, from folk to blues, jazz or roots, to come along and play in the informal session setting.

Saturday will see an all-day session, beginning at 12pm and running until 8pm at the Prospect Bar, Prospect Hill, Douglas with a set dance workshop from 3pm. The weekend will be rounded off with a lunchtime session at 12.30pm at the Thirsty Pigeon, Douglas on Sunday.

One of the organisers, accordion payer Mary Molloy, said that all musicians are more than welcome to join in, as informal participation is what makes a session tick.

’We welcome participation, and this year especially would love to have new musicians and singers come along,’ said Mary.

’Because our weekend is mainly fed by visiting musicians and they can’t now travel, we thought how about getting all genres of musicians in the island to come along to one big jam session,’ said Mary.

’And that is what it is, one big jam session. Let’s see what happens.’

by Mike Wade

Twitter:@iomnewspapers