Enfield folk musician Ailsa Mainwaring speaks to Sarah Richardson about her musical journey to date

I met Enfield folk musician Ailsa Mainwaring for a chat in a cafe hung with fairy lights, and we began by talking about her early influences.

Ailsa grew up in Rochdale, where her family got involved with a local show where amateurs performed for each other. “I wore out the video out of my dad performing in Pirates of Penzance,” she says.

Ailsa sang with her mother in church choirs, and it was at one of these that her talent was first noticed. This led to studying first at the Royal Academy of Music and then Guildhall at the age of 23.

“I learnt to sing on the second biggest stage in London, after the Coliseum, at Guildhall,” she says. The camaraderie there was like Rochdale, with trainee stage managers, musicians, lighting and costume designers working with singers to create an opera every term. But Ailsa found she wanted something more.

“Opera puts you in a box. Sopranos turn up for an audition to sing Mimi in La Boheme and you have a roomful of ten girls wearing the same dress.”

Because of her deeper voice, Ailsa felt confined to “token mad, old lady parts”. She felt inspired by June Tabor, the English singer/songwriter, and a chance meeting with folk musician Nick Siepmann changed her career.

Nick convinced Ailsa to sing at Bowes Park Folk Club. “I knew three songs,” she laughs. He wanted them to gig together, and they slowly built a set list and set up a local community choir called New River Shanty Crew. Ailsa had piano lessons as a child which helped her learn the accordion, an instrument which lent itself well to her klezmer music project with husband, Paul Kendler. They sang old Yiddish songs to Paul’s 100-year-old grandmother in her care home, to help with memory loss.

Prior to this, Ailsa’s experience of klezmer was watching a performance of Fiddler on the Roof in the 1990s, when the stage manager glued bottles on hats for the iconic bottle dance. Ailsa and Paul were keen to learn more, and last summer they visited The Caucasus to learn ancient Jewish polyphony.

Back home, they introduced some of these three-part songs to shared sets with Nick. This summer, Ailsa and Paul plan to go to the Weimar Music Festival in Germany and spend time with Daniel Kahn, to develop a contemporary take on klezmer music.

The waitress comes over to remind us she’s closing soon, and we just have time to talk about Ailsa’s unfulfilled dreams. She says it changes all the time, but she’d love to conduct more and “get my teeth into Oliver! or something”.

The light opera Jewish songs of Fagin and Golde – from Fiddler on the Roof – are in her musical mind along with sea shanties and La Boheme. It reminds me of Bob Dylan, another musical polymath. “I’m proud of my different strands, they’re all valid,” says Ailsa as she stands to leave. “I’ve got those years, I can do it.”

Ailsa leads New River Shanty Crew on Thursdays from 1.30pm-3pm at Shaftesbury Hall in Herbert Road, Bowes Park. For more information:
Email [email protected]
Visit facebook.com/p/New-River-Shanty-Crew-61551129986987

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