AN online archive charting the rich history of music in the North-East has gone live.
The Folk Archive Resource North East (Farne), the country's first project of its kind, has been launched in Gateshead.
The project has been headed by Gateshead Borough Council, The Sage Gateshead music centre and Newcastle University.
About 4,000 music manuscripts, song lyrics, photographs and classical sound recordings from traditional songs and compositions have been transferred to digital formats and put online.
Alongside the archive, the website offers Radio Farne -a collection of recordings available to listen to online, information about the region's instruments, how they sound and how to play them.
Project officer Rachel Peacock said: "This pulls together resources as never before.
"They came from a huge range of different locations and can be accessed from home, without having to go, say, to Berwick, Cumbria or Middlesbrough."
Folkworks artistic director Alistair Anderson said: "People will be able to hear live music played and see the manuscripts at the same time. It will fire people's imaginations and inspire musicians and reinvigorate musicians, to the point where tradition keeps on growing and expanding."
The archive is the first of many resources that will be available from the music information resource centre at the Sage centre. Funding has come from the New Opportunities Fund's digitisation programme. The site is at www.folknortheast.com
Published: 30/01/2004
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