Where Folk Meets Its Future

You love the tradition. Let’s build the practice to carry it on..

This is for you…

Whether you’re a singer, instrumentalist, storyteller, or ensemble — if you love a living tradition and want to build a practice that lasts, you’re in the right place.

Lynn Noel is newly retired from tech and dedicating her encore career to leading and serving folk and heritage arts and music communities.

Lynn has walked your path and understands your journey. With dual careers in arts and tech, she’s built a lifelong practice as a working artist and is ready to help you build yours.

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MEET US: The Mermaid’s Tavern

A welcoming online folk club where singers, players, and listeners gather around song, story, and shared tradition, with regular ballad and chantey sings and a series of special events. The Tavern emerged in response to the pandemic but continues to draw 20-30 singers monthly from North America, the UK, and Europe. Join us as a special guest or event host if you’d like to reach our audience!

Mermaid’s Tavern

REFLECT: What Can I Do With All These Songs?

Session singers, jam leaders, and new bands — you have the songs and the festival experience and are starting to wonder where and what your next stage could look like, let’s have a free 60-minute conversation with some of the song leaders who’ve made it to their next stage.

Next Stage

DIVE IN: Research Rabbitholes Workshop Series

When I went looking for who collected Rio Grande, I was doing digital humanities and heritage interpretation research. I just didn’t call it that. Bring your current research rabbithole. In three sessions, we’ll follow it together — and find out what it can do for your credibility, your programs, and your sense of what you’re actually qualified to say..

Research Rabbitholes

BUILD: DIY Digital Workshop Series

Let’s go book some gigs. Build the systems and the practice — email outreach, customer relationship tracking, ticketing, payments — that sustain your art beyond the festival in four workshops that can be taken individually or in series.

DIY Digital

ACTIVATE: DIY Digital Tune-Up Intensive

Got systems but no contacts in them? In one session, let’s turn your existing systems into real leads, real outreach, real action.

Tune-Up

LEAD: Future of Folk Fellowship: Coming in 2027

Are you ready for the long game? I ‘m ready to pay it forward and pass it on. Not a course. A sustained working relationship with someone who has navigated the full arc — and wants to help you do the same. Looking for one emerging folk or heritage artist who is ready to go the distance. Coming 2027.

Fellowship

What People Say

I was despairing over how to reach my audience when the pandemic began. Lynn immediately saw the opportunity that presented itself and I have to commend her for that. The Mermaid’s Tavern hosted my first online concert and it was a lot of fun. But more importantly, it gave me some hope about how to adapt during the crisis.

Matthew ByrneNewfoundland, Canada

Lynn has the rare ability to see the big picture, to create broad strategies to achieve goals, and then to actually identify and execute the small steps that lead to big changes.

Lucinda RobbinsLucinda Robbins, Senior Director of Sales Operations ,Vera Whole Health

II can honestly say Lynn is one of the most talented and visionary people I know. She has the ability to create a winning business strategy as well as manage all the day-to-day details. While Lynn is an excellent communicator with outstanding collaboration skills, she also has the technical chops to lead any IT team. Lynn is a superb mentor and colleague who has always provided me with excellent technical and personal advice!

Susan MundVP of IT, Community Action Organization of Western New York

Lynn’s willingness to teach, to guide, to suggest, to forewarn, and to correct, were all important components of our success. I have been making music on something for more than six decades, have played guitar for 53 years, and sung all my life, but as you will find out: that is not enough. If you are finding your way into the world of digital media, you will be lucky to find someone who has been down that path ahead of you and understands it. Lynn Noel at Digital Heritage Consulting was that person for us. We were lucky, indeed.

Scott AinslieCattail Musice

When the Folk Song Society of Greater Boston was forced to cancel an in-person house concert, Lynn Noel and Digital Heritage Consulting came to the rescue. In just a few days, Lynn created a virtual house concert experience. It was the performer’s first time doing a virtual concert – it was FSSGB’s first time hosting a house concert – so much could go wrong!

But Lynn nimbly guided all of us through communication and technology challenges, with the result that four times as many people were able to enjoy the concert. It was such a success that a month later, FSSGB called upon Lynn’s expertise once again to assist another performer to broadcast a virtual concert from his home, with the result that ten times as many people attended

Lynn is a professional – with the level-headed clarity of a technician and the flexible creativity of a performer, she comprehends the virtual experience as a whole, which brings about a fulfilling experience for everyone – performer, host, and audience.

Lynn FeingoldPresident, Folk Song Society of Greater Boston