The competitions are held in The Westcliffe Hotel on Saturday morning with Gordon Potter as host. All entries are very welcome!
Traditional Songwriting Competition
Saturday 3rd May – 11:00am
The Westcliffe Hotel
Entries are invited for the Traditional Songwriting Competition. To enter, please collect an entry form from the Festival Shop.
We’re delighted to welcome Glasgow song maker Steven Clark to judge our 50th anniversary song competition. Steven’s seminal Coming Home won first prize at the competition in 2004.
Looking for some inspiration?
Take a listen to this selection of archival recordings of the Traditional Songwriting Competition made by Dr Margaret Bennett and Dr Peter Cooke hosted on Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches.
Anne Neilson sings Ian Davison’s My Love of You in 1989
Angus Russell’s comic Cheers for those with a Beard Today won 2nd prize in 1979
Traditional Singing Competition
Saturday 3rd May – 12:00am (follows on directly after Songwriting Competition)
The Westcliffe Hotel
Entries are invited to the Traditional Singing Competition. Please collect an entry form from the Festival Shop.
A singing competition has been a part of Girvan Festival since our very first Festival in 1975 and we’re delighted that a Dublin singer of no little renown, Macdara Yeates will be the judge this year.
The singing will follow on directly from the songwriting and so may start before 12. To enter, please be in good time for the start of the competition.
More from the archive…
Recordings by Dr Margaret Bennett.
Norman Stewart sings The Iolaire at the 1989 ‘Songs of the Sea’ singing competition
What do we mean by ‘traditional’ song?
We love entries to the competitions. There are no hard and fast rules and no songs will be excluded on ideological grounds!
Generally speaking, entries to the Singing Competition will be unaccompanied renditions of songs that exist in oral tradition, while entries to the Songwriting Competition can be accompanied or unaccompanied songs that are, in some sense, informed by the folk tradition.
As with many things in life, the judges’ decision is final!!!
Jock Hunter presents the Monrovians with 1st prize in the Ceilidh Band Competition at the 12th Festival in 1986Archival recordings embedded on this site by kind permission of Tobar an Dualchais.