Aberdeen-born headmaster Dr Ian Russell will return to his North-east roots this month when he takes up the Directorship of the Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen
Taking up post today (1 September), he will aim to raise the profile of the Institute, both within the University and the community of the North East. Among his plans to achieve this is a comprehensive survey of the vibrant traditional culture that exists in the region and the establishment of the Institute as a centre of excellence for the study of the ballad, folksong and folk music.
He intends to set up collaborative research projects with other internal and external bodies, develop outreach work with local communities, including teachers and schools, and set up a programme of publications for targeted groups.
Ian Russell was born in Aberdeen in 1947, lives in Derbyshire and has been the headteacher of Anston Greenlands School in Rotherham since 1986. His doctorate was based on the singing traditions of West Sheffield.
During the past 30 years, he has conducted extensive fieldwork in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire and has researched, broadcast, made films, lectured and written on folksong, traditional drama, folk dance, and traditional humour both at home and in the US.
He was the editor of the Folk Music Journal from 1980 to 1993 and was awarded the Harold Coote Lake Research Medal by the Folklore Society in 1986 in recognition of this work. In 1994, 1996 and 1998, he directed the highly successful Festivals of Village Carols at Grenoside, Sheffield.
In July 1998, he convened the international conference at the University of Sheffield to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the Folk Song Society, opened by the Rt Hon David Blunkett. He has recently completed the entry of “Folk Music: England” for the forthcoming edition of “New Grove” and a CD for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC which has just been published under the title “English Village Carols.”
In 1998, he was also awarded the EFDSS Gold Badge, the Society’s highest honour.
His carol research, which includes over a thousand hours of field recordings and hundreds of manuscripts, is currently being organised into a major archive called Village Carols. Copies of the recordings have been placed in the National Sound Archive at the British Library and in the Archives of Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield. There are currently 14 Village Carols publications including books, audio cassettes, four CDs and two carol collections.
The Elphinstone Institute was set up in 1995, during the University’s Quincentenary celebrations, and was named after its founder, Bishop Elphinstone. The Institute is dedicated to preserving, studying and promoting the cultural heritage of North and North-east Scotland and it aims to do this through studying, recording and promoting of the traditional culture of the region.