Our Vision

Fiddlehead Folklore Institute believes every person is creative and is best inspired to their creativity through an interactive, supportive, and diverse community participation. We promote social harmony through creative multicultural education and research programs.

Our Mission

Fiddlehead Folklore’s mission is to nurture joy in creativity and cultural connections through music-arts education and research in Hong Kong and globally.

Our Objectives

To fulfill our vision and mission Fiddlehead Folklore Institute will offer several programs:

Multicultural Community Program will provide various workshops and short courses for the general public to learn about a wide variety of traditional arts globally including music, dance, fabric arts, storytelling, drama, tarot, festival traditions and more.

For children and their parents, Fiddlehead will provide a holistic multicultural music curriculum, called the Musical Village Method, that teaches music in a cross-cultural context and involves inter-generational learning with the engagement of parents and family members.

The Musical Village Method will draw on the best of classical music training including the Suzuki Method, Creative Ability Development, and more to combine that into a unique approach.

Fiddlehead Folklore will further the cause of nurturing creativity and innovative thinking in Hong Kong’s youth through the Creative Ability Development Method. As well as support the development of the Suzuki Method.
The Fiddlehead Folklore Institute will partake in, and further, folklore and ethnomusicological research in Hong Kong and other global regions. This may be independent research and/or collaborative community based projects. This research may inform the curriculum for the Musical Village Method and Multicultural Workshops.

Finally, Fiddlehead Folklore Institute is open to working with local education and community groups to explore and document folklore and intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area.

Our History

Fiddlehead Folklore Institute is the brain child of founder Dr. Evelyn Osborne whose own career to date has always been a mix of music education, research, performance, travel, and artistic experimentation. With Fiddlehead Folklore Institute she seeks to bring these together in a grounded way to celebrate holistic arts and celebrate the diversity of cultures in Hong Kong.

What is Folklore?

Folklore has many meanings but it is generally considered to be the traditions we use in our everyday lives from verbal sayings, to expressive artistic forms, to cultural beliefs and stories, to foodways, to vernacular architecture. Folklore is all around us and contributes to our identity and culture making. It is what makes us curious about other people and their different ways of living. It is what we tell ourselves and others about what makes us collectively who we are.

What is a Fiddlehead?

For the Fiddlehead Folklore Institute there are two types of Fiddlehead.

One is the violin scroll, the head of the violin, aka the fiddle.

The other fiddlehead is the succulent and delicate fern that is the first to grow in the spring as the snow melts. It is the first of the edible plants to appear in the spring and lasts only a short while before unfurling into it’s full blossom as a fern. Shakespeare suggests in Henry IV that fiddleheads grant invisibility, while to other cultures they symbolize youth, family, and new beginnings.

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