About
A Touchstone is a mark for determining the quality or genuineness of a thing. It is also the name of the museum in Rochdale where Lala Qadeer, Alistair Anderson, Khalil Anjum and Dan Walsh first met.
In June 2022 at the second Rochdale Folk Festival, Dan Walsh & Alistair Anderson’s lightning virtuosity stunned audiences inside Touchtones Rochdale’s beautiful event space. Amongst the audience were Lala Qadeer and Khalil Anjum who had come to see the well respected stalwarts of the English folk scene.
Following the afternoon’s concert Dan and Alistair headed over to Unity House at the Kashmiri Youth Project alongside esteemed guests including the Mayor of Rochdale for an evening of music, food and friendship supported by the Rochdale Kashmiri Association. Lala and Khalil were joined by other musicians in what became a very special and at times deeply emotional performance.
Exemplars of their respective folk traditions, these four very special musicians are working together to develop a unique and groundbreaking collaboration of Kashmiri and English folk music.
Over the Summer of 2022, they will spend time in Birmingham exploring their musical heritage and creating a first ever fusion of Kashmiri and English folk music before showcasing this work at Manchester Folk Festival in October.
Collaboration, where all cultures can engage in creative conversations can be taken as an example, a Touchstone, for many other aspects of life in these troubled times.
Dan, Khalil, Alistair and Lala hope that this is the start of a wonderful musical journey.
This project is produced through a partnership of the Alliance of Kashmiri Arts and English Folk Expo. It is funded by Arts Council England.
In September 2022, the four musicians came together in Birmingham’s B:Music for seven days of collaboration, exploration and rehearsal.
In this short video, the artists discuss this process and their hopes for the project in general.
