Helmsley's Jazz 'n' Swing Weekend - line up announced

The line-up of musicians for this first ever jazz 'n' swing weekend has now been announced. Tickets are still available for the weekend, programmed by international jazz drummer John Petters.  It will bring together a unique combination of traditional jazz, swing and American songbook music, played by some of the top jazz performers in the UK today.

The musicians performing include the incredible Julian Stringle on clarinet, who made his TV debut with Acker Bilk when he was just 14. He has since played with George Chisholm, Don Lusher, Kenny Baker, Cleo Lane & Sir John Dankworth and Meatloaf. He has recorded with Roy Williams, Marc Almond,  George Melly, Joe Brown, Chas & Dave and the Spice Girls.

Featured on double bass is Annie Hawkins, another great international musician dubbed "Europe's first lady of the double bass".

Also in the line-up is pianist Dave Browning, who has been playing the British jazz scene for 20 years to great acclaim and who’s main influence is the great Thomas 'Fats' Waller.

The weekend has lectures, a forum and quizzes and incredible jazz performances, including the music of Fats Waller, Benny Goodman and the wonderful ‘Satchmo’, Louis Armstrong.

It runs from 2pm on Saturday 24th March to late on Sunday 25th March.

Full details and online booking click here.

Tickets start from £4 and a full weekend tickets to all the events costs £65.

The Shed brings KAN to Kirkby

The Shed On Tour brought the folk group KAN to Kirkbymoorside Memorial Hall tonight and attracted an appreciative audience of 180+ to the delight of promoters Simon Thackray and Sue Wright.

KAN

Irish flute and whistle player Brian Finnegan and Scottish fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, front men with Flook and Lau, have joined forces with two of the brightest stars in the world of rhythm and accompaniment – Yorkshire-based guitarist Ian Stephenson, who works with Kathryn Tickell, and Jim Goodwin, drummer and percussionist with the Halle and Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, to travel an innovative new musical path.

Visit the KAN website here.

The Shed On Tour is a new collaboration between The Shed and Rural Arts North Yorkshire and will bring leading artists from the world of folk, jazz, country and contemporary classical music to village and community halls like ours across Ryedale and beyond.

The Shed has been awarded £34,500 from the National Lottery through Arts Council England to work with Rural Arts on this exciting new pilot project.

You can watch KAN footage on YouTube here.

UNCORKED at the Helmsley Arts Centre

There's a new night launching at Helmsley Arts Centre, led by new Artistic Director Em Whitfield Brooks on Friday 17th February. UNCORKED will feature spellbinding sets from three top accoustic acts with fine wines and nibbles in the bar between each act.

The music on the menu at this first UNCORKED event will be:

Beccy Owen: A welcome return to HAC for Beccy, described by the NME as a “delinquent Carole King,” Beccy’s latest album of intent is the self released long player ‘Down With Gravity.’ Produced by Joe Rusby her third album features performances from world-class luminaries such as Kate Rusby, Peter Tickell and Rachael McShane, and is hailed as “a stunning collage of tender romanticism, off-kilter harmonies and disarming rhythms” (Alt Vinyl). Her music has been endorsed by Elvis Costello, who described it as “lovely and original” following Beccy’s live session for BBC Radio 2’s Janice Long. She has performed alongside Maximo Park, Rachael Unthank, Nitin Sawhney, Northern Sinfonia, Bellowhead, Jim Moray and Field Music; she supported the award-winning folk collective Bellowhead on tour, appeared on BBC 2’s The Culture Show, and was nominated for the Performer of the Year award at the Journal Culture Awards. “A fallen, aggrieved, dark angel and a very, very special talent” Music Week. “A soulful, guiding light.” Metro “A real discovery…Gorgeous” – Janice Long, BBC Radio 2. Beccy spends a lot of time these days singing with North East supergroup Sharks Took The Rest, so this is a rare opportunity to catch her mesmerising solo performance.

Dave Keegan: Excellent singer-songwriter, who channels a whole host of left-field pop and rock influences in his melody-driven, bittersweet acoustic songs. Dave’s powerful performance style, versatile voice and compelling songs always hold audiences spellbound. If you haven’t seen Dave perform solo before you’re in for a real treat.

The Cornshed Sisters: these four singers, hailing from Tyne and Wear, offer a stunning and original blend of guitar pop, folk tales, protest songs, piano ballads and gospel. Their sound is magical, with songs displaying a healthy disregard for unity of subject matter. One of their singers Liz Corney was a huge hit with Icene at Helmsley Arts Centre last year. Recently signed by London-based label Memphis Industries, this appearance is part of a tour to highlight the release of their first album Tell Tales on 9th April. The future is bright for this group - you’ll see them here first… Uncorked @ Helmsley Arts Centre Friday 17th Feb 7.30pm Tickets: £9 - includes free glass of wine Box Office: 01439 771700 or book online.

Local performers star in acoustic night - Friday 10th Feb.

The next acoustic night in the Studio Bar of Helmsley Arts Centre features 10 of our best local performers doing a couple of songs each. A real mix of styles from a plethora of talent of all ages!

Plus, we’ve a real treat in store from our special guest performers Luke Hirst & Sarah Smout, playing and singing original songs and arrangements with acoustic guitar and cello. Luke and Sarah were winners of last year’s Wath Festival Young Performers Award who you can watch below:
 
 We kick off at 7.30 and finish by 10.15pm.

Bands wanted for Rock School 2011

February half term sees the return of Pied Piper's collaboration with Leicester based band Delta Sly, and their extremely successful Rock School.

This project is for young emerging bands, and those who are more established but want some extra help and support on specific areas of their development.

Participants are supported by a 5 piece band of professional gigging musicians, ensuring that there is plenty of opportunity and support within workshops to focus on specific instrumental techniques, develop original material, explore how to develop cover versions of existing songs, band skills - including promotion and ensemble playing, record their original material and have a professionally produced album.

The week finishes with a gig on the Friday night where all the bands who have been involved get an opportunity to perform to a live audience wtih professional lighting rigs and PA systems, giving an authentic gigging experience!

When: Monday 21st - Friday 25th February 2011

Time: 10.30am - 4.30pm daily

Where: Brooklyn Youth Centre, Norton

Gig: 7.00pm Friday 25th February @ Brooklyn Youth Centre

How much: Workshops and Gig are FREE

Visit the Pied Piper website

How to book a place for your bandIf you are in a band and would like to take part in this project please email us or call 01653 669410 to book your place. Alternatively if you take part in either the Atmosphere or Brooklyn Rock School you can book your place through the youth worker.

This project is part of the NYMAZ programme and is being delivered with funding from NYMAZ, The Earl Fitzwilliam Charitable Trust, North Yorkshire County Council and Arts Council England, Yorkshire.

This Saturday: Feb 5th - The Tom McConville Big Band

The Newcastle fiddle player, Tom McConville, is one of the leading folk fiddle players of our time. A virtuoso musician and fantastic singer, his rich, warm voice makes his interpretations of traditional and contemporary songs greatly admired by singers throughout the world. He has played on literally hundreds of albums and whilst he has shared stages throughout the world with many big names he has never forgotten his roots in Tyneside.

Watch Tom here:



His big band line-up includes David Newey, Shona Kipling and Phil Murray, whose performances combine a roller coaster of musical delights.

“Scintillating fiddle, a silky smooth tone, a wide grin and a dry Geordie wit.'”

"Tom is a great player, and a terrific singer, he happens to be a number one bloke too." Dave Swarbrick

"This band is quite simply the top of the tree." Mike Harding

Get your tickets here

At last, we're back!

It's a long time for a blog site to go quiet. Since April, for heaven's sake. But life has been a bit too full to manage blogging on top of the extra work involved in responding to the present financial ouch factor.

The last entry was about the 1812 Theatre Company's production of "The Memory of Water". I'm delighted to say - particularly so, as I was the director - it was a great success. It even made a profit. Most pleasing, though, was the high quality of ensemble acting by the cast, especially of the three sisters and their dead mother.

Even more successful was the Russian Orthodox Choir. So popular were they we had to put on an extra performance on the same day. Lucky for us they were willing to do it. And that sold out too.What a wonderful sound they made. The acoustic of our auditorium was perfect for them.

Heatseeker(theAC/DC Tribute Band) pulled in a keen crowd of fans, as, by way of complete contrast, did the Audience with Michael Mansfield, QC . He was a relaxed and fluent speaker and held his audience with ease. As ever, the Mardi Gras Jazz lunches were popular, and though "The Land Girls of Yorkshire" played to a full house, many in the audience felt it was a disappointingly flat. Maybe the Company had been touring it too long.

The 1812 Youth Theatre production of the world premiere of "Won't Be Long", by Tom Needham (of TV fame) and David Griffiths, was funny and moving and full of excellent performances from individuals in a very big cast. The story of evacuees in World War II

touched many in the audience. And for the first time in their history the company took the show to another venue - in Thornton le Dale, where their performance moved the audience to tears. We were particularly lucky in having sponsorship for this production from the Helmsley Freemasons Lodge No 7075, for which many thanks.

Disappointingly, a number of shows since then haven't done so well, for all that they were excellent entertainment and thoroughly enjoyed by those who did come. Ali Cook and the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, for example. Ali Cook's magic tricks are superbly executed and the puppets outrageously funny. Perhaps the publicity didn't make it clear that "puppets" doesn't necessarily mean "for children". It was definitely a show for adults.

Likewise the usually very popular "Ryedale Live", with its 2nd birthday celebration, brought a smaller than hoped-for audience. But they filled the studio/bar and in a relaxed and appreciative atmosphere, with french doors open to the balmy evening air, they enjoyed some first-class performers .

Actually, the scheduling did load the dice against us more than a bit, what with 10,000 attending the Simply Red concert in Dalby Forest, the Wombleton prom down the road, the World cup on the telly, not to mention the beautiful summer weather.

And I guess the latter plus Wimbledon and the local Steam Fair kept the audiences down for "The Wind in the Willows", though 40 on the first night and 60 on the second was pretty good under the circumstances. Ratatat Theatre Company were on sparkling form in a witty and inventive, high-energy version by Martin Riley, with Dominic Goodwin in his element as Toad.

And what a shame only 32 made it to "Dancing the Ramayana", a beautiful tour-de-force of Kathak(north Indian) dance and music, with the graceful and powerful dancer on the move,

non-stop for an hour and a quarter.

Now then, we hope more of you come to see that exceptionally talented young guitarist, who can play just about any sort of music, Clive Carroll, in the intimacy of the Studio/bar on Saturday 10 July at 7.30pm. Buy your tickets now.

We're very keen that as many of you as possible come to support the incredibly accomplished young players in Ryedale School's award-winning Wind and Jazz Bands on Sunday 11th July at 2.30pm. Buy your tickets now.

And then you mustn't miss the 1812 Theatre Company's latest production of "84 Charing Cross Road" 21st to 24th July at 7.30pm.Buy your tickets now.

Right now we're just putting the finishing touches to our autumn brochure and very soon the whole programme will be in our website and your online booking can start.