Montol Polka

by Martha Woods

‘Montol’ is Cornish for ‘midwinter’, and is also the name of a midwinter festival in Penzance which revives and reimagines old Cornish Christmas and midwinter traditions such as guise dancing. I wrote this tune to go at the end of the title track on my Christmas EP ‘Mis Kevardhu’, and I hope that captures the darker, more mysterious side of December.

Martha Woods is a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Cornwall. Having grown up playing and dancing with traditional Cornish dance team, Tan Ha Dowr, and writing songs for her band, The Woodcarts, she went on to study on the Folk and Traditional Music degree at Newcastle University (including a year at the University of Limerick). She enjoys writing tunes and songs for a range of different settings and combining elements of folk and traditional music with more contemporary genres.