Folkestra, formerly known as FolkESTRA North is The Sage Gateshead’s youth folk ensemble, formed in 2001. It is led by their Musical Director Kathryn Tickell

Kathryn Tickell

Kathryn Tickell is an English player of the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle. She has recorded over a dozen albums, and toured widely.-Life and career:...

, one of England's premiere folk musicians.

They have performed at a wide range of concerts, recorded and published their self entitled album, "FolkESTRA North", and taken part in festivals including the National Festival of Youth Music, Sidmouth

Sidmouth

Sidmouth is a small town on the English Channel coast in Devon, South West England. The town lies at the mouth of the River Sid in the East Devon district, south east of Exeter. It has a population of about 15,000, of whom 40% are over 65....

 International Festival and Towersey Village Festival

Towersey Village Festival

Towersey Village Festival is an annual festival of folk and world music and traditional dance held in the village of Towersey in Oxfordshire, England. It has taken place every August bank holiday weekend since its founding in 1965....

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In Easter of 2005, Folkestra took part in a UK tour called "The Road to the North" to celebrate the rich traditional music of the North East of England. They performed here alongside The Kathryn Tickell

Kathryn Tickell

Kathryn Tickell is an English player of the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle. She has recorded over a dozen albums, and toured widely.-Life and career:...

 Band, Alistair Anderson, Louis Killen, and the Old Rope String Band. With two successful CDs and a growing national reputation, Folkestra have performed at many concerts and festivals across the country, and also at the BBC Proms first ever Folk Day at the Royal Albert Hall. In the summer of 2012, Folkestra are to perform at Traflgar Square in the River of Music festival.

Folkestra's 15 band members play a wide variety of instruments, including fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

s, an accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

, a melodeon, a whistle, a flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

s, a saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

, northumbrian pipes, voices, and foot percussion.