Jennifer Reid

Folk music has lost its way, and people have lost track of their geographical heritage. The working classes made music as a provocation and this is a tradition Jennifer continues. She is a performer of nineteenth century Lancashire dialect and Victorian broadside ballads.

Jennifer plays the character of Barb in Shane Meadows’ period drama The Gallows Pole.

After volunteering at Chetham's Library and the Working Class Movement Library, Jennifer completed an Advanced Diploma in Local History at Oxford University.

She researches nineteenth century music to:

• educate students from primary school to university level
• perform the songs and stories live
• develop talks, seminars and traditional craft workshops for history and community groups
• contribute academically to the field with funded research and artistic projects

Her work has taken her to Venice, Croatia, New York and lately Bangladesh, where she tested the idea that the Industrial Revolution never stopped, it just moved to Dhaka. She spoke at the first ethnomusicography conference on the Indian sub-continent about her research into Bangladeshi and Mancunian weaving songs. She is currently consultant on the University of Leeds and Science Museum project ‘Congruence Engine’.

Jennifer researches ballads and applies them to modern life. You may have seen her on the television in both factual and entertainment programming.