Heather Summers
Performance and Teaching
Initially a classically trained violinist, Heather also plays mandolin
and percussion, in particular cajon, and combines many styles in her performance
- folk, jazz, classical and Eastern influences. She has performed and
recorded on both sides of the world in a number of world folk, contemporary
and world music bands including Bull's Wool, Cardi, On The
Edge, Scrape the Grape, Fireweb, and as a solo performer, Reel
Fiddle. She
was part of The Siwsann George Welsh Road
Show that performed in Urdmurtia, part of the Russian Federation,
in 2004, Siwsann being a leading traditional Welsh artist on the folk scene
. Sadly she died the following year.
As well as Meerkat, Heather currently performs with Sound Waves click link, where live improvisation meets computer improvisation, using pre programmed synthesized and natural sounds. She has a long history of improvisation, has attended courses with Maggie Nichols and Eddie Prevost, and been fortunate to work alongside some first-class improvisers from around the world. She's always searching for new inspiration from innovative leaders in the music field, as well as more recently, from music technology.
Heather is a qualified teacher and community music tutor with many years
of experience teaching diverse groups in Wales, including children, the
elderly, women's groups, people with learning difficulties, mental
health service users, those with visual and healing impairment.
In 1997, she realised a dream/vision she had of setting up an all women's
music event, when she founded Women
In Tune, a women's music charity based in West Wales. She's currently
its Artistic Director.
The Other Bits...
Heather is a fiddle player with many strings to her bow! She's been playing violin since the age of ten, and has always been passionate about her fiddle, and music in general. She studied languages at university, then became a qualified primary school teacher. Her first job was in Australia where she found herself in charge of music for the infant department at a primary school. Despite loving working with the children, she didn't enjoy the state teaching system and decided to get out of mainstream teaching and travel around Australia in a Land Rover for a year with her partner and her fiddle. Already a leather worker, she made and sold leather goods in all sorts of weird and wonderful places, to help pay the way, and played her fiddle of course.
To cut a long story short, after this trip, she and her partner taught themselves how to make shoes, and set up a small handmade boot and shoe business in the middle of nowhere, in Victoria. She became fiddle player with her first band, Bull's Wool, and got totally bitten by the performance bug. Up until this point she'd played with orchestras, but a wonderful friend and fantastic fiddle player had introduced her to the joys of Irish music, and this was the first time she had performed in this capacity - except it was actually Australian folk...
Several years later found her back in Britain, living in Wales, still making shoes and playing in Philomusica orchestra, Aberystwyth, which later gave way to playing in the various bands mentioned above. A few years on from that, she and her partner went their separate ways, and she got more into performance than ever, as well as training to become a Community Music Tutor, which led to...
How Women in Tune Came to Be (1997)
As a musician/performer over many years, Heather realised there was a glaring lack of women on the stage enjoying their musical skills and feeling confident enough to share them with others. There were women vocalists but so few women playing instruments. The festivals and stages around the country were full of fine bands but predominantly male. As a Community Music Tutor on work experience, she found there were few young girls and women taking part in the workshops and music projects she was working on. She had a dream/vision about holding a women's music event.
As a woman who has been fortunate enough to benefit from a whole range of skilled and inspiring workshops within the field of music, and who has the confidence to perform, she wanted other women to enjoy the same benefits. As part of her training, she had to organise a project. A friend suggested she actualised her dream to hold a women's music event by making that her project. Good idea she thought, and set up Women In Tune, a much bigger project than first envisaged!
With the help of a group of local women, Women In Tune (WIT) Women's Music Festival came into being. This is a 6 day event for women that offers a safe and supportive space in which to explore musical creativity, and other related arts, with a range of professionally led workshops for all levels, given by women tutors, with women performers providing strong role models. It was only ever meant to be a one off, but it was so good it's kept going and is an annual event every summer. Visit WIT web site for lots more info about the festival and the training courses also offered by Women In Tune.