Name: Songwriters in Conversation #4 (Janice Burns, Jayne Dent)
Start: 2025-11-16T17:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-11-16T19:30:00+00:00
Location: Baba yagas loft

Songwriters in Conversation #4 (Janice Burns, Jayne Dent)

Performances by Janice Burns and Jayne Dent, followed by a Q&A with the songwriters discussing folk traditions and their influence.
About this Event

How do traditional folk songs influence contemporary composers? When you spend part of your musical life singing traditional ballads, does that shape your own music in particular ways?

Hosted by Groundbird - the songwriting pseudonym of Northumbria University academic Richard O'Brien - this is the fourth in a series of events where some of the North East's top musicians will be in conversation, discussing how they think about the songs they write.

This event features Janice Burns and Jayne Dent. Janice is an in-demand collaborator (with Janice Burns and Jon Doran and RE:VULVA), usually known for her vocal harmonies and mandolin playing. This performance will showcase some of her own writing - songs of the changing seasons, relationships, and the passage of time - and interpretations of traditional folk songs, with tenor guitar as her accompaniment instrument of choice.

Jayne is known for her work with punk band Bitchfinder General, and as Me Lost Me - a project which takes influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully push the boundaries of genre. Her unique sound has won much support across the musical spectrum. Dent has notably performed live for BBC Radio 3's After Dark Festival and as part of the 2022 BBC Proms alongside Spell Songs, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Voices of the Rivers Edge Choir. She received the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers and was 2020-2021 Artist in Residence at Sage Gateshead-

Each act will play for about 30 minutes each, followed by an onstage Q&A discussion.

Doors will be at 5pm, with an opening song from Groundbird around 5:15, Janice Burns on around 5:30 and Jayne Dent at 6:15, with the Q&A starting at 7.

This event is the second in a series of four now generously funded by a North Shields Cultural Quarter grant from North Tyneside Council.

Cover image by Kyle Heslop, who will be filming the event as a video podcast for YouTube.