women taborers world-wide

worldwide traditions: women taborers

Men vastly outnumber women in all traditions that have a three-holed pipe as part of their culture. This is not because great strength is needed (often cited as a reason for men-only professions). It is purely cultural. Women were possibly there,
albeit in small numbers. Or is it that women are not widely represented in the iconography because they were there in
such large numbers, so common, as to be ignored? In the 21st century women taborers are becoming more visible.

This essay is put here as a discussion point and will no doubt be added to/amended by readers.
Do send views and/or pictures to Frances, project manager.

The double pipes were widespread in ancient representations of musicians.

8 archeological carved stone figurines, playing
double pipes have been found in Ibiza, Spain.
6 of these figures are female. (source)

664-525BCE Egypt
women musicians double pipes and drum

Many places in Sicily have yielded double pipes played by women especially in sanctuaries like Fontana Calda:
6th century BCE Sicily	4th century BCE Sicily	3rd century BCE Sicily	200 BC – 500 AD female player Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
from: TERRACOTTA FEMALE MUSICIANS FROM THE SANCTUARY OF FONTANA CALDA (SICILY) by Angela BELLIA

In medieval society “…despite their musical prowess and well-regarded entertaining aptitudes, women were
stigmatized because their behaviour was seen as breaking the stereotypes imposed on them by a male-dominated
culture. Scholars agree that since these entertainers did not appear to be under the control of a male ﬁgure
(both in or outside of the performance context) in principle, they were perceived as rejecting conventional
strictures that urged females to maintain established roles such as those of housewives or pious women.
Their pursuit of monetary remuneration — a feature that associated women with prostitutes — and their
physical presentation before a male audience) magniﬁed the perception of irregular behaviour . The use of
dancing, contortions, or any other type of lively or energetic movement of the body such as the playing of
percussion instruments further worsened their respectability...”

“Alleviators of Sadness and Tedium”: Constructing a Socially Acceptable Image for the Medieval Female Performer” mauricio molina, 2015

In medieval European iconography there are many images of women playing the tabor and also hand drums,
square and round. Female images of pipe and tabor players tend to depict mythological and allegorical beings.

"Old English had such words as timpestere, a female drum player. The 1321 incorporation of thirty-seven
Menestreus et Menestrelles, jongleurs et jongleresses living in the city of Paris includes at least eight names
identifiable as belonging to women. "

'tā̆bornester' and 'taburnistir' were middle English words for a female drummer

1 528 Woman Instrumentalists - Baldesar Castiglione's 'The Book of the Courtier'.
This book was extremely influential in dictating proper female conduct for many centuries to come.
Castiglione writes that it is "not seemly for a woman to handle weapons, ride, play tennis, wrestle,
and do many other things that are suited to men.... Not only would I not have her engage in such
robust and strenuous manly exercises, but even those that are becoming a woman I would have her
practise in a measured way and with that gentle delicacy that we have said befits her; ... the musical
instruments that she plays ought in my opinion to be appropriate to this intent. Consider what an
ungainly thing it would be to see a woman playing drums, fifes, trumpets, or other like instruments;
and this because their harshness hides and removes that suave gentleness which so adorns
a woman in her every act"

'THE GENDER STEREOTYPING OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS IN THE WESTERN TRADITION' by Rita Steblinz

In European medieval manuscripts it can be hard to tell if a man or a woman is being depicted. Two women taborers:
This hybrid is definitely part female by the hairstyle c.1300.	in the margins of a manuscript concerning Amazons 1230-1294

"Mermaids were associated with lust, temptation and the dangers of sexuality because mermaids were considered
as volatile as love, a portrait of falsehood, deceit and inconstancy."

" mermaids represented sensual allurements and female seduction; they play music leading men astray
from virtue and making them fall headlong into sin"

1313 medieval mermaid; ceiling painting
Beauvais, France

14th century London

c.1350 hybrid Belgium
probably Tournai,

1440 drawing from a page of women playing various musical instruments	Martin le Franc, French poet: wrote a poem 'The Champion of Women' which was a defense of virtuous women.		Women taborers are also depicted in glass. 1463 In the Church of Our Lady of Bulat, in Bulat-Pestivien, Brittany, France, three similar stained glass windows depict angels that are very female-looking
1489 Frontino, Italy, alterpiece (detail)	1533 Design for a triumphal arch for Anne Boleyn's coronation procession in London, England.	Were there women pipe and tabor players at this time or was this just part of the design to look dramatic and shocking?	Jan Massys (c.1510 – 1575), Flemish painter, put a female pipe and tabor player right on the edge of 'Jovial Company'
1541 Pietro Bembo's opinion, voiced to his daughter Elena in a letter, was that music was fit only for: "vain and facile women’, and should play no part in the life of an honest lady” 1450-1499 in a conduct guide for women filled with examples drawn from the lives of saints: (written by a man) “she who would perfect the virtue of chastity must take note of six things … The sixth is to avoid hearing singing, playing [musical instruments] and dancing.” Italy, possibly in Perugia, 'Fiore di virtù and other moralizing verse'
In the majority of Italian literary sources published before 1530 the representation of music in female hands is as a tool of seduction.
taken from a play of 1577. At this time this player could be a male cross-dressing.	“Wind instruments were frowned upon. Their distortion of their player’s face during the performance and their phallic shape turned them into unbecoming choices for proper ladies of the court, whose main concern was to look chaste and beautiful to make a profitable marriage…” ‘My virgin cheeks puffed up’: Classical Mythology, Women and Wind Instruments During the Early Modern Period' by Laura Ventura Nieto
16th century page 60 possible female pipe and string drum player. Wood panelling in the choir. Cathedral of Pilar Zaragoza, Spain	The friezes and walls of the choir in the Cathedral of Pilar are decorated with satanic symbols and scenes of confrontation between Good and Evil. This is the only female musician. The image of the salterio/string drum was stained for several centuries by the reputation of being a demonic instrument, and finds it's place amongst the dragons and the Cerberus guardians of the Inferno.

7 images depicting Jephthah's Daughter
in the Bible, Judges 11:

In ancient Israel celebrations of victory
and thanksgiving were generally celebrated
with women dancing. This was the case when Jephthah was joyfully welcomed. His daughter,
Iphis, welcomed her victorious father with 'drumming' and dancing.

1866 poem ‘Jepthah Judge of Israel’
‘Reliques of ancient English poetry : consisting of old heroic ballads, songs, and other pieces
of our earlier poets ; together with some few of later date ; in 3 vols’.. 1 by Percy, Thomas

1468-1472 Germany

1570 part of a band Holland

1570 Czech bible - women's band

1560-80 England

17th century Flemish

17th century Holland

1602-1630 Holland

14 other Biblical images:

1500/1546 Germany
David and Saul returning from battle met by Israelite women

1322 Miriam, parting of the Red Sea, Tripartite Mahzor, Germany

1564-1573
Miriam, part of a female band

1577 sketch of a ceremonial arch Brussels, Belgium

1578 Holland

16th century painting
Antwerp, Belgium

16th century painting, Flemish

1595-1651 Germany
'Israelite women run out
of the city gate

16th/17th century Israelite women come out of the city playing instruments; Bible

1610 Amsterdam, Holland
book illustration

1613 Italy engraving: Biblical scene: women musicians welcome David

1675-1699 Biblical reference, Northern Netherlands

1700-1750 Women musicians welcome David: Peru, chapter house of the Carmen Monastery, Arequipa

1890 women come out of the city to greet David, Germany

1602 Italy “La musica è aidata esclusiva- mente alle donne, poiché sono più gradevoli, nonché ai fanciulli; non però l’uso delle trombe e dei tamburi” “Music is entrusted exclusively to women, since they are more pleasing, rather than to young boys; not, however, the use of trumpets and drums” Tommaso Campanella, The City of the Sun, (1602, first ed. Frankfurt, 1623), ed. Lina Bolzoni and Carlo Carena (from the 1637 edition), Milan, S. Berlusconi, 1998, p. 30:		Children's Games Netherlands Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painter

1613 women's band: ‘Poly-Olbion. or A chorographicall description of tracts, rivers, mountaines, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of Great Britaine, with intermixture of the most remarquable stories, antiquities, wonders, rarityes, pleasures, and commodities of the same: digeste in a poem by Michael Drayton, Esq. With a table added, for direction to those occurrences of story and antiquitie, whereunto the course of the volume easily leades not. London: printed by H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes: I. Browne: I. Helme, and I. Busbie, 1613. A Description of the wonders of Great Britain divided into eighteen songs.’
1636 book illustration, Cotswold Games, Dover’s Hill, Chipping Campden, .Gloucestershire, England.
Some have said that so few women have been depicted in the past because there were no players and it was just a fanciful curiosity. A 17th/18th century lady bare-breasted and with her skirt wrapped around to show off her shape. The symbolism of the portrait is clear. Wentworth Castle, England. What does this say about the pipe and tabor?

	.	c1760 ceramic Longton Hall Stoke-on-Trent, England . British Museum		France statuette from the series of Figures de Comedie
A girl child modelled in France in 1760. The pipe is missing. Maybe the pipe and tabor were seen as child's games so not worthy of being reported

In the early 18th century human activities in Europe were satirised by being depicted as being
carried out by monkeys. A German court orchestra was reproduced as ceramic monkeys.
This copy looks like a female. They are usually male.

front

side

Three Victorian ceramic
statuettes, the first one broken.

Do they show actual women
or are they viewed only
in the ceramic modellers' eyes
as to what will sell?

1750's Isabella Wilkinson, entertainer, England	Isabella Wilkinson	Derby Mercury - Friday 15 March 1771
Late 18th century female musitioner: late 18th-century memoir of William Savory of Brightwalton in the Berkshire Downs: "John Savory, … with more of his Companions went to Morris Dancing and ornamented themselves with Snail shells instead of Bells…- their Musitioner was Betty the wife of Stephen Taylor now living at Brightwalton…” [Ed at this time the musician for morris dancing generally played the pipe and tabor, the assumption is that Betty Taylor also played these instruments.] ‘Morris Matters’ Volume 34, Number 1 January 2015 by Jameson Wooders
1784 Germany: “ trumpets and drums evoke military associations, while horns suggest the hunt. These activities conflict with the weakness of the female sex; thus, these instruments are unsuitable for ladies to play” [Carl Ludwig Junker], Vom Kostiim des Frauenzimmer Spielens,Musikalischer Almanack aufdas Jahr Freiburg
“… the German author of a canonical music history textbook declared that “All creative work is well-known as being the exclusive work of men…” Emil Naumann,The History of Music , 2 vols., trans. F. Praeger (1882-86), 2: 1267 quoted in 'An All Male Affair' Revisited: Historical Women and the Early Music Marketplace, c1973-2015’ Brighton UK Early Music Festival. 17th October 2015

1801 England
A group of women gather round to listen to the female taborer.

girl 1821 In the drawing
The Harvest Home this girl helps to lead
a procession coming in from hay-making. (Thomas Rowlandson, London, England )

UK 20th century

Taborers could be found in early music, folk, (morris and folk song and dance), and street entertainments. The movement to include women started in the early 20th century, as far as we know.
Joan Sharp July 1923 At a folk dance festival at Cirencester “some Morris jigs received an accompaniment of pipe and tabor, the traditional instruments for the purpose, played by Miss Joan Sharp” Western Daily Press, 23 July 1923, p. 5. in ‘Joan Sharp (1898–1968) and the Revival of the English Pipe and Tabor.’ by Richard Sermon, 2021 Folk Music Journal, vol. 12, no. 1, annual 2021
July 1923 Photograph of two Morris dancers, "J H Thomas and Alec Hunter with Joan Sharp with pipe and tabor at an event." Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard 28 July 1923
In the 1929/1930's Joan Sharp played pipe and tabor for morris and country dancing in England and on tour to the USA and Canada.	Joan Sharp and Douglas Kennedy Joan Sharp playing Ladies' Pleasure / Lumps of Plum Pudding here and Fool's Jig / None So Pretty here (1947)	1927 Chelsea Polytechnic newspaper report:
1929 Joan Sharp in Canada		Sheffield Independent - Monday 24 November 1930
Carl Dolmetsch said " The three-holed pipe, now much used for the playing of Country Dance tunes, has also figured amongst the products of the Haslemere workshops. They were supplied to many prominent folk dancers, among them Miss Joan Sharp, daughter of Cecil Sharp, founder of the movement."
J Sherman1925 J Sherman's photograph taken alongside the Oxford University Morris Men	. Georgie Taylor 1925 playing for morris dancing. The Isis Strollers danced at a Reading Festival. accompanied on Pipe and Tabor by Mrs Taylor (Georgie), Secretary of the Oxford Branch	Imogen Holst 1925 Jane Schofield wrote: “Amy [Stoddart] did 'Princess Royal' to Imo's accompaniment on pipe and tabor” [Imo is Imogen Holst] ‘Imogen Holst – A Life in Music’ by Christopher Grogan (page 27) 1951 Imogen Holst produced ‘Benedick and Beatrice’ A one-act opera in twelve scenes, the libretto adapted from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, for mixed voices 18 musicians and pipe and tabor. It was only produced once. ‘Catalogue of Imogen Holst’s works’
Mrs Hill March 1927 newspaper report: "Mrs Hill playing the Morris pipe and tabor" Oxford Journal Illustrated
1927 Miss Todd Leeds Mercury - Saturday 09 July 1927
In 1926 Mrs Helen Kennedy played the pipe and tabor for a morris jig at a folk dance demonstration at Southall, London. The newspaper report (West Middlesex Gazette) had the title ‘Pipe and tabor revival at Southall’
1928 Mrs Helen Kennedy West Sussex Gazette - Thursday 08 November 1928
Some morris dancers were completely against women as dancers, managers and musicians until early 21st century. In April 1934, one dancer of the East Surrey Morris wrote a letter in which his criticism of the intervention of women in morris dancing was unequivocal: "As regards men’s morris, my feeling is that it should be entirely man-managed. Women should have nothing to do with its management at all." (source)
Despite attitudes such as these some women contributed fully to the morris movement. Miss Barnett was praised by the Oxford University Morris Men: " Our inspiration was Miss Marjorie Barnett (Mrs Heffer) who was the Oxford teacher at that time and one of the few women really capable of teaching Morris" 1921 It was an “unqualified success”; “to Miss Barnett is due the careful and efficient preparation and training, for the dance” (Oxford Chronicle 17 June 1921). 1926 "Miss Barnett generously gave her teaching services free and we men, all pretty raw beginners, depended entirely upon her for instruction, and we owed her a tremendous debt for her enthusiasm and technical expertise. " 1924 " The Morris had to be learned through EFDS teachers, who were normally women. There was indeed more women’s Morris then than today, and, while all men agreed that what they danced was not the real Morris, the more observant and honest men admitted that on points of a pure technique practised women had an annoying habit of doing better than men. The EFDS women teachers were selected by Sharp and his senior staff..." wrote Francis Tabor 'The Ancient Men THE OUMM AND ITS BACKGROUND'

Miss Welsford Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press - Saturday 10 April 1948		Bucks Herald - Friday 17 March 1950
Winsome BartlettWinsome Bartlett in 1968 helped to set up, teach and play the pipe and tabor for Dartington Morris Men. She made pipes and tabors, sang and appeared on the radio playing the pipe and tabor (1953).		1970 Winsome Bartlett playing for Dartington Morris Men
Winsome Bartlett's pipe

source
UK 21st century	Frances Tucker	Between about 1985 and 2015 Frances Tucker played the pipe and tabor as a historic strolling minstrel covering all periods medieval to the end of Victorian times around England and Wales. She played at events from historic houses and museums to shopping centres, themed craft fayres and festivals to private celebrations. She played for dancing and with a 'dancing bear'. She also gave historic costume talks, wrote articles, sold historic haberdashery, put on static costume displays, lead dances and published a costuming directory.
Since 2004 Gillian Guest has played for dancing, (long-sword, Playford, clog and morris), but mostly is a wandering minstrel in the streets, in historic processions, at National Trust or English Heritage properties etc. She plays everything from very early music, via Playford and folk tunes, to modern compositions.		Gillian Guest
Emma Mordue		Emma Mordue at Kentwell Hall 2019; Musician, Educator, Street performer, specialising in Renaissance era music of the common people, played on period wind instruments. I play at banquets and weddings, formal and informal gatherings. I also run workshops on a Tudor music and dance theme for schools and community groups.
Frances Eustace gives talks and educational workshops on topics from late Medieval, Tudor, Restoration and Baroque periods. She is a published author on these and medieval dance.All talks contain an element of performance (singing, bagpipes, pipe and tabor, psaltery). She also plays baroque bassoon and viol and gives talks about Pepys and Purcell.		2014 Frances Eustace playing for New Esperance morris dancers at Hastings

2009 Mannington Hall, Norfolk

21st century Avery Gosfield
at The Taborers Symposium

2011 medieval reenactment
Verdin Park, Northwich, Cheshire

2013 Mary-Jo Searle

2013

2016 playing in Wallingford
Oxfordshire, for morris dancing

2017 Anne Jones in a early
music ensemble

unknown

Doncaster Waites, playing early music

Nellie Heavisides,
entertainer

Napoleonic re-enactment

Sarah Lowes, Northumberland

Sara Stowe early and contemporary music
for adults and children

2020 'Poultiggery' Sarah from 'Have Maypole Will Travel'
historical dance and maypole workshops in Northumberland.

2023 DurgaMata Chaudhuri
busking in London

Fiona Kizzie Lee, 21st century, England
The Early Music Shop video that illustrates their pipes and tabors for sale.

Kate Fletcher plays the pipe and tabor
in England for a range of historical periods.

Music here

2023 Helen Clark

2023 Grace Williams playing
for London Pride Morris

2023 playing for Sweyns Ey Morris
Swansea, Wales

Sharon Lindo, Berkhamsted, Herts

2024 Jenny Mawdsley
Stoke on Trent

2024 Stephanie
Black Annis Morris, Leicester

South and Central America

In South and Central America in indigenous cultures women are not allowed to play instruments. They can
sing but not play the pipe / flute / panpipes and tabor.
This is now gradually changing particulary in urban
centres.

Two women from the Tarahumara
people in north Mexico .

In 2014 women panpipe and drum players
joined a group in a political march in Argentina.

Women's band at a college in Lima, Peru

"In today’s Bolivian and Peruvian Andes, pinkullu or pinkillu
duct flute performance is exclusively male, strongly associated
with courtship"

'Waka-pinkillo' by J. Richard Haefer, 2016

Slovakia

In Slovakia the fujara is the traditional three-holed wind instrument played by male lovers. The man would stand under the lady's window and play in his own unique style.

In the 21st century there is more freedom and women are starting to play the instrument too.

father is a player

at a concert

France

1811 Gypsies in Paris

“…a troop of gypsies immediately engaged my attention…one
of these females flourished a tambarine, and gingled the bells
with inconceivable vivacity, while another sounded the pipe and tabour…”

‘A Winter in Paris; or, Memoirs of Madame de C****’

France, 21st century.
There seems to be no
discrimination in Provence.

Lessons are available

early 20th century, procession, men and women, Toulon

1929 France page 11

		Woman playing galoubet-tambourine	2017 Solene Riot
Provence; statuettes based on two female taborers. These are for sale alongside statuettes of men.
21st century Caroline Leprette, Laval	[source]	2019 early music, France	2023 'Into the Winds' early music group
2023 folklore group Escandihado at Feast of Saint-Michel, Grimaud, France		2007 Monein SW France
1860's		2012	Caroline Leprette playing string drum

Portugal 21st century A few women play the pipe and tabor or another percussion instrument.	2020 NE Portugal
21st century women students at the music school in Lisbon

Spain

Ibiza, Spain, 2016:
This was the first female pipe and tabor player to play in public in Ibiza. Ester Torres said:

"I am aware that it is something that had never been done before, but women had never voted before, in the end it was achieved and now we see it as something normal and necessary in today's society like ours"
(source)

"Ester Torres broke stereotypes
in 2016. Now she is no longer alone and Paula Serra has also made her debut 2024. It hasn't been easy, but they have had great support."

dressed as a peasant

2024 Paula Serra and Ester Torres

2024 men and woman players Ibiza

In Spain Pilar Marcos said in 2018: “Right now there are girls playing, they are still few, but when I started
there was no one... Today, there are many women, in different spheres of culture, society and work, who
continue to suffer discrimination for the mere fact of being a woman.
"they told me what did I do playing the drum when that had always been for men ... they criticized me and did
not throw me out, because I left...they said it was 'a man's thing'... people were very struck by the fact that I
was a woman, always out of respect. I only had to suffer that 'contempt' when I started ... because ...
in women it is fatal when the drum is played, that cannot be done!"

José Ramón Cid Cebrián was interviewed in Spain in 2015:
Q Now the girls play the drum? Before, women didn't play castanets either, dancers played them.
A Now yes, not before, there is some reference to a female drummer, but it was not traditional. There are
things that must be maintained and respected, and others not. Why can't there be a female drummer?

The instrument, traditionally only played by men in Majorca was, by the 21st century, being played by women in public:
1980's (?) Aina Sansó (1960-2017) Manacor biography here	2019 Majorca
Xeremiers de Fornalutx, Majorca	2024 playing in church in Sóller, Majorca

2023 accompanying the cossiers traditional men's dance in Algaida, Majorca
Es Castell, Minorca, "takes pride on its Scottish dances, where stick-dancers are dressed in Scottish style and are accompanied by the very Balearic flaviol and tambori"
In Hondarribia, in the Basque country, an accuser's declaration during the 1611 witch trials under the Inquisition said that he saw Inesa Gaxengoa play the tamboril. It is not known why that was used against her; whether it was because women were not allowed to play the txistu (pipe), or because playing the txistu was a sin in itself, or both. Women now join in with men in parades in the many festivals thoughout the region	1960s Parade Basque Country	One woman, Maitane Aurrekoetxea, took the initiative to bring together lovers of this instrument in 1999 and founded a new group.

1984 Basque country (France)

Basque country resin statuette

Basque 21st century, Basque Country
Two women txistularis.

2006 Basque country

Bilbao, Basque country, Spain

This woman has the biggest drum, Spain

2014 Hondarribia, Basque country, men and women players, Spain

2019 Basque "we’ve brought together three female txistularis.
Or, simply put, three txistularis: they don’t see the point of that
distinction between men and women"

2020 2020 Basque tourism advertising poster

For one hundred years Basque pipe and tabor
(male) players have been used occasionally
on tourist posters to advertise the area. This
is the first time that a female player has been
portrayed. [posters here]

2009 women playing for dancers, Pamplona, Navarra

2023 Garaine Jorajuria
Txistu professor at the
Conservatory of Navarra (Pamplona)

2024 girl playing for outdoor traditional dance Catalonia

2015 El Rocio pilgrimage, Andalucia; mixed group

2017 El Rocio pilgrimage, Andalucia

2024 procession in Jerez
de la Frontera, Andalusia

2024 Maria Gomez Martin Andalusia

"María is from Almonaster la Real, a small village in Andalusia. You can see her playing as guitarist, singer and/or taborer in traditional celebrations (such as Pilgrimages), festivals and other events in both countries, Spain and UK. These three words characterise her performances: spontaneity, passion and “juerga”. "

2011 Andalusia

2023 Rocío Albarrán, Almonte, Huelva, Spain

2021 Morella, Valencia, Spain

2017 Salamanca

2024 Villamayor Salamanca

2020 all three women's images above are taken from a video made in Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca

21st century Extremadura, Spain, men and women players	2021 Hoyos, Extremadura
2023 Jato Festival, Cáceres, Extramadura [Jato 68]	2024 The first female taborers from Aceituna, Cáceres, Extremadura mother and daughter Montse and Tania

2024 women taborers from across Cáceres
"But my father told me that was a man's thing, and over the years, look,
we've shown that we too can play the flute and the tambourine like them."

USA

1937 Wellesley News

“Miss Evelyn K. Wells of the department of English literature
turned back the pages of history to the time of Queen Elizabeth
in a lecture for 101 students…In conclusion Miss Wells played
popular tunes on the pipe and tabor, the instruments of the country
people. When she had finished everyone joined in Sellengers Round,
an Elizabethan country dance.”

1943 Elizabethan Evening

“Elizabethan Evening Will Feature Singing,
Dances, Pipe and Tabor
…Plans for this evening, "in the spirit of a party
in Elizabethan times," have been made by Miss Wells…
closing the evening will be a few tunes on the pipe
and tabor by Miss Wells followed by a country dance
for the entire audience….”

Wellesley News, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass

1944 Elizabethan Program Presents Music, Dance, Popular Centuries Ago

"…The tradition was started eight years ago because the instructors
of English had wished for some time that students would realize how
much Elizabethan music reflected the social life of the times," said
Miss Evelyn Wells, director of the program. The first year Miss Wells
was the only performer…There will also be some traditional tunes
on pipe and tabor. The program will end with some Country dances
"for as many as will."

Wellesley News, v. 53, no. 10 Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass

Jessica Murrow played the pipe and tabor for The Bouwerie Boys Morris Dancers in New York City, USA, early 21st century.
In 1981 she played Oboe, English Horn, Pipes and Tabor in a production of Macbeth on Broadway, USA.

Maggie Erickson also played in the same morris band on the pipe and tabor (1994).

2009 Jessica Murrow playing
for morris dancing, May Day, New York

2003 playing for morris dancing Margaret Dale Barrand	2013 Ruth Olmsted playing for morris dancing, Albany, New York	2018 'Strumelia' Germantown, NY	2018 Carla McKenna playing for morris dancing USA
2021 Danielle, plays early music as part of Bartholomew Faire	2023 Elizabeth, Oragon

Canada

2023 Annette Bauer Montreal, Canada

Taiwan

In Taiwan traditionally, women of the tribes are not allowed to play the twin-pipe nose flute instrument, while men are allowed such an honour. Fewer men played the nose flute as time goes by. There was a danger that its music would be gone forever.

The new generation of musicians saw
the need to break the tradition and allow both men and women to play the instrument. By doing this, women and children of the tribe have managed to preserve the twin-pipe nose flute for future generations.

boy and girls learning the double nose flute
from Yu Weimin

Germany		2024 Gabriele Bultmann Germany	2023 Gabriele Bultmann's class, Viktoria-Luise-Platz, Berlin
Silke Gwendolyn Schulze		Silke is very interested in the more “exotic” medieval wind instruments like the double recorder or the pipe and tabor and in reconstructing a possible repertoire for these instruments. She also has a passion for the double reed instruments of the Renaissance . In 2017 her solo recording “The Medieval Piper” (brilliant classics) was released, illustrating the versatile instruments as well as the rich and manifold repertoire of a medieval piper.