No jokes please about whether there is life in Ryedale. As an ambitious music project gets underway, rural residents are proving once again that they can do culture every bit as well as the metropolitan types.

Rob Davies is a man on a high after the sell-out success of his first event in July. His Ryedale Live! venture packed out the Bandroom in Farndale for six sessions with excellent musicians. The idea is to have three established players alongside three up-and-coming locals.

The formula has been an instant hit, Rob says. ‘The local players really raised their game and there was a great atmosphere.’ This month the event moves to Hovingham, then on to Hutton-le-Hole in November.

He’s hard put to say what kind of music is played because it’s pretty eclectic. It’s not strictly unplugged – acoustic guitars can be miked, for instance – but ‘anything that’s not a racket’ is Rob’s taste. He’s a player himself and says musicians are very much drawing on world music as well as traditions closer to home. ‘It’s not all tales of woe and death, folk music is changing too,’ he adds.

The venues, village halls, are part of Ryedale Live’s appeal. Rob has deliberately chosen well known  music venues such as the Bandroom and Hovingham, home to The Shed, to get his own plans underway. He’s been pleased to find that not everyone who came to the first gig was a regular, though: there is certainly a new audience to be found.

There are new venues to be found as well. Rob says there are no fewer than 64 village halls in Ryedale – ‘a fantastic, under-used resource’ – and he wants to bring music to a good number of them. There are more plans for next year, with a songwriters’ forum to encourage new talent, and a chance for the writers to perform in smaller, inviting settings to give them a start.

‘It’s all very exciting,’ says Rob. ‘This takes things up a level from playing in pubs and combining musicians from elsewhere with local people is a great opportunity.’

Friday 5 September’s gig at Hovingham Village Hall features 17-year-old Anna Leddra-Chapman, Holly Taymar, a singer songwriter starting to make big waves on the York jazz scene, and David Swann, an acoustic folk singer songwriter recently returned to his home county from the south.

Also performing will be local singer/songwriter Em Whitfield and Scott (one half of local duo The Dangleberries), Scarborough-based Alastair James, and Samuel Gilderdale from Malton. Details at www.ryedalelive.co.uk.