Lynn Noel

Lynn Noel has been a working folk and heritage artist since 1986, when she left a PhD program to do music full time — a decision she has never entirely stopped second-guessing and has never regretted. She tours nationally and regionally as Crosscurrents Music, co-founded the Boston Area Chantey and Maritime Sing and several local Boston sings, runs the Mermaid’s Tavern online folk club, and serves as Board member and Program Chair of the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA). The Country Dance and Song Society recognized her with a CDSS Local Hero commendation. Her award-winning book VOYAGES: Canada’s Heritage Rivers grew out of thirty years of research into the value of Canadian waterways, receiving Best Conservation Publication from the Natural Resources Council of America. Her recent Joanna Carver Colcord Centennial tour — eleven venues, one program, the woman who collected the chanteys — came directly out of the research practice she now teaches through Digital Heritage Consulting. She has been mentoring emerging folk artists for twenty years, first informally and now through DHC, because she keeps meeting talented musicians who have everything they need except a clear sense of what comes next and the practice to pursue it with authority.