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York Early Music Festival rejoices in return to full-strength programme from July 8

Director Harry Christophers (holding rail, sixth from left) with seemingly rather more than 16 in The Sixteen, playing York Early Music Festival on July 9

FOR the first time since 2019, the York Early Music Festival will be at full strength this summer for nine days of concerts, talks and workshops under the theme of Connections.

Highlights during the festival run from July 8 to 16 include The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars and Gabrieli Consort & Players, all at York Minster, and the return of the York International Young Artists Competition.

The programme also features gamba specialists Paolo Pandolfo & Amélie Chemin; The Gonzaga Band; The Rose Consort of Viols; the University of York Baroque Ensemble; Orí Harmelin; Profeti della Quinta; the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists and Ensemble Voces Suaves.

Tickets are on sale on 01904 658338, at ncem.co.uk or via email to boxoffice@ncem.co.uk, with discounts available for Friends and under 35s.

“The festival presents a series of concerts linked together through a maze of interconnecting composers, shining a light on the many connections that hold us together in the past and into the future,” says director Delma Tomlin, explaining the festival theme.

“This year’s theme is Connections, connecting and indeed reconnecting music, artists and, of course, our audiences,” says York Early Music Festival director Delma Tomlin

Concerts will be supported by a series of illustrated talks, workshops, opportunities to ‘Come and Sing’ and informal recitals at a festival presented in historical venues such as York Minster, the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, St Lawrence’s Church and the festival headquarters, the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM), in the medieval St Margaret’s Church building in Walmgate.

The festival’s grand finale will be the York International Young Artists Competition 2022, wherein ten groups from across Europe will give informal recitals at the NCEM at 10am and 2pm on July 14 and 15 before competing for the prize on July 16. 

The winners will receive a professional CD recording contract from Linn Records, a cheque for £1,000 and opportunities to work with BBC Radio 3 and the NCEM. Additional prizes will be supported by Cambridge Early Music, the European Union Baroque Orchestra Development Trust and the Friends of York Early Music Festival.

“We are delighted to be presenting a nine-day festival of music in our beautiful city, staged in some of the country’s most architecturally stunning buildings,” says Delma.

“This year’s theme is Connections, connecting and indeed reconnecting music, artists and, of course, our audiences. As always, we’ll be celebrating the glorious music of the past but also looking forward, as we’re able at last, to stage the York International Young Artists Competition, showcasing and nurturing the performers of the future.

The Tallis Scholars: Making Choral Connections at York Minster on July 11

“We’re so pleased to be back at full strength, and we can’t wait to welcome you to York for what promises to be one of the most exciting festivals to date.”

Those unable to attend are advised that the festival will be offering many of the concerts online across the summer. Full details will be available from ncem.co.uk.

Audience safety and comfort is a continuing priority in an ever-changing environment for the NCEM and York Early Music Festival. Check out the full guidance at ncem.co.uk/covid-guidelines.

The 2022 York Early Music Festival programme:

July 8, 7.30pm: Paolo Pandolfo & Amélie Chemin, viola da gamba duo, Heavans Joy, The World of the Virtuoso Viol, at NCEM, York.

July 9, 9.30am: Master And Pupil, workshop led by The Gonzaga Band director Jamie Savan, at Clements Hall, Nunthorpe Road, York. Singers and players of Renaissance wind and string instruments look at the polychoral repertory of Giovanni Gabrieli and Heinrich Schütz.

Ensemble Voces Suaves: Schutz happens at St Lawrence’s Church on July 15

July 9, 12 noon: The Sixteen Insight Day, at NCEM, York. Insight Day explores stories behind The Sixteen’s Choral Pilgrimage repertory. Discover more with singer and practical scholar Sally Dunkley, organist Robert Quinney and a consort of Sixteen singers.

July 9, 7.30pm: The Sixteen, Author Of Light, at York Minster. Harry Christophers directs a choral programme focused on Hubert Parry’s Songs Of Farewell.

July 10, 2pm: The Early Music Show, BBC Radio 3 live broadcast presented by Hannah French with selected festival guests, at NCEM; free to those attending a festival event. Immediately afterwards, violinist Kati Debretzeni presents delayed 2020 York Biennial Lifetime Achievement Award to violinist Catherine Mackintosh.

July 10, 4.45pm: Minster Minstrels, Fairest Isle, directed by Ailsa Batters, at Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York. NCEM’s youth instrumental ensemble performs music from the late 17th-century theatre, court and household to demonstrate the influence of the new Italian and French styles in post-Restoration England.

July 10, 7.30pm: The Gonzaga Band, Venice 1629, directed by cornett player Jamie Savan, at NCEM, York. Vocal works by Claudio Monteverdi and Alessandro Grandi and virtuosic Baroque instrumental music by wind player Dario Castello and violinist Biagio Marini feature in a series of snapshots from an extraordinary year in the life of this most musical of cities.

The Gonzaga Band: Snapshots of Venice, 1629 on July 10

July 11, 10.30am: Schutz In Venice, illustrated talk by Jamie Savan, at Bedern Hall, York. On his second visit to Venice in 1628-29, German composer Heinrich Schütz would surely have met Monteverdi, by now maestro di cappella at St Mark’s, but this talk also introduce lesser-known 1620s’ Venetian innovators in modern vocal and instrumental music.

July 11, 1pm: Rose Consort of Viols, with virginals player Steven Devine, Music For Severall Friends, at NCEM, York. Anniversary-marking concert of viol consort works by two British composers, the conservative Thomas Tomkins (born in 1572) and the more radical Matthew Locke (b.1622).

July 11, 7.30pm: The Tallis Scholars, Choral Connections, at York Minster. Director Peter Phillips explores connections between Josquin des Prez and his successor at the Sistine Chapel, Palestrina; Byrd and his English forebear Taverner.  

July 12, 10.30am: An Italian In London, illustrated talk on The Case of Angelo Notari, musician and spy, by Jonathan Wainwright, at Bedern Hall, York. Italian-born Notari moved to England in 1611, making his career as a court musician. Little was known about his time in Italy, until recently, prompting this examination of his  life and (newly attributed) compositions.

July 12, 1pm: La Vaghezza, Sculpting The Fabric, at St Lawrence’s Church, Hull Road, York.  Stars of the EEEmerging+ programme, this young Italian ensemble presents early-17th century Italian works by Cavalli, Merula, Vitali, Fontana and Rossi from debut album Sculpting The Fabric.

Gabrieli Consort & Players: Re-creating a Venetian Coronation at York Minster on July 13

July 12, 7.30pm: Profeti Della Quinta, Lamento d’Arianna, Italian Renaissance music from Rore to Monteverdi, at NCEM, York. Winners of the 2011 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition take a journey that connects early 16th-century ‘classical’ madrigal to Monteverdi’s ‘operatic’ solo madrigals in 17th-century Mantua. 

July 13, 1pm: University of York Baroque Ensemble, Mannheim Travels To Fife,
Early Symphonists and Two Brothers, at St Lawrence’s Church, Hull Road, York. Highlighting works by Mannheim symphony kick-starter Johann Stamitz, Italian brothers Giovanni Battista and Giuseppe Sammartini, Johann Christian Bach and Scottish composer Thomas Erskine.

July 13, 7.30pm: Gabrieli Consort & Players, A Venetian Coronation, 1595, directed by Paul McCreesh, at York Minster. Spectacular re-creation of the festive Coronation Mass of the Venetian Doge Marino Grimani at St Mark’s, Venice, in 1595, to mark the Gabrieli Consort’s 40th anniversary.

July 13, 9.45pm: Ori Harmelin, Neshima: The Hebrew For Breath, at Undercroft, Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, Fossgate, York. Theorbo specialist explores arrangements of madrigals, motets and chansons by Cipriano de Rore, Josquin des Prez and Thomas Tallis, complemented by Harmelin’s compositions and Irishman Simon McHale’s The Orbo.

July 14 and July 15, 10am and 2pm: International Young Artists Competition Recitals 1 and 2, at NCEM, York. Informal recitals featuring all the ensembles taking part in the 2022 competition, performing music from the Middle Ages to the early Classical period, introduced by master of ceremonies Professor John Bryan.

Ori Harmelin: Theorbo concert at Merchant Adventurers’ Hall on July 13

July 14, 7.30pm: Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, Bach’s Other Leipzig, directed by Peter Lawrence, at St Lawrence’s Church, Hull Road, York. Not only composing for two churches when in Leipzig, Bach also wrote four ‘Lutheran masses’ in 1738/39 and the Coffee Cantata for Zimmermann’s Caffeehaus, a miniature comic opera on the pressing subject of coffee addiction, featured here.

July 15, 4.30pm: Come and Sing Handel’s Messiah, at St Olave’s Church, Marygate, York. Peter Seymour, conductor, and Ben Horden, organ, invite allcomers to Come and Sing a selection of choruses from Handel’s Messiah in a short rehearsal and performance.

July 15, 7.30pm: Ensemble Voces Suaves, Enrico Sagittario: Heinrich Schütz in Italy, at St Lawrence’s Church, Hull Road, York. Exploration of the Italian side of German composer Heinrich Schutz, putting music from his debut collection alongside madrigals by Gabrieli and Monteverdi that inspired him, plus toccatas for theorbo by Girolamo Kapsberger, an Italian composer with roots in Germany.

July 16, 10am: York International Young Artists Competition, at NCEM, York. 2022 competition, featuring ten groups, will be presented by John Bryan and judged by Edward Blakeman, from BBC Radio 3; Albert Edelman, president of Réseau Européen de Musique Ancienne; Linn Records producer and recording engineer Philip Hobbs;  violinist Catherine Mackintosh and harpsichordist and professor Barbara Willi.

Profeti Della Quinta: Italian Renaissance music from Rore to Monteverdi at NCEM on July 12
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City Screen to charge £3 for tickets on Saturday in inaugural Picturehouse offer

City Screen Picturehouse York: £3 ticket offer on Saturday

CITY Screen Picturehouse York’s inaugural £3 Ticket Day will take place on Saturday.

In a celebration of cinema spanning all 26 Picturehouse cinemas in the UK, all visitors can watch any film at any time for only £3 a ticket. 

Cinemagoers will have the chance to sample the diversity of films on offer at Picturehouse, including this Friday’s new releases The Duke and Cyrano, alongside opportunities to catch some of the biggest releases of the past year, such as Belfast and West Side Story, and Picturehouse Entertainment’s The Souvenir Part II.

Picturehouse’s reDiscover season will be celebrating the work of Studio Ghibli, and no film is more eagerly awaited than the 50th anniversary release of Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia epic The Godfather, all guns blazing on Friday. 

Clare Binns, Picturehouse’s joint managing director, says: “Saturday is a chance to celebrate great cinema. At Picturehouse we believe in the power, the fun, the joy of sharing great films together.

“After such a tough two years, this is an opportunity to invite you to sample a range of brilliant films on the big screen for only £3 a ticket.

“We curate our film programme with love and passion and want people to come in and celebrate with us on this exciting day for cinema lovers everywhere. Cinema on the big screen is well and truly back in all its diverse glory.”

Films playing  at City Screen York Picturehouse on Saturday:

The Duke; Belfast; Death On The Nile; The Souvenir II; The Beatles: Get Back – The Rooftop Concert; Cyrano; Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind and My Neighbour Totoro.

For full listings for February 26, go to: picturehouses.com/whats-on?date=2022-02-26

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REVIEW: York Settlement Community Players in Ayckbourn’s Woman In Mind ****

Desperately seeking Susan, as she loses her mind: Victoria Delaney in the Settlement Players’ Woman In Mind. All pictures: John Saunders

Woman In Mind, York Settlement Community Players, York Theatre Royal Studio, until Saturday, 7.45pm and 2.45pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

ANGIE Millard “seemed to have avoided Alan Ayckbourn” in her past directorial choices, but she had one play in mind for the Settlement Players’ return to York Theatre Royal after two years.

Ayckbourn’s sad, haunting, darker than dark-humoured psychological drama Woman In Mind had struck a chord in the pandemic climate of isolation and mental health issues.

Premiered in 1985 but still feeling present day in 2022, it remains Ayckbourn’s supreme study of a trapped woman, older than Nora in A Doll’s House but just as affecting as the desperate flight of Henrik Ibsen’s proto-feminist, Susan’s story being told from inside her woozy head.

The setting is 48 hours in her south London garden and beyond: the place where the world is refracted through the prism of Susan’s psyche.

Playing fantasy families: Victoria Delaney’s Susan raises a glass to husband Andy (Paul French), daughter Lucy (Amy Hall) and brother Tony (Neil Vincent)

Following in the footsteps of Julia McKenzie, Stockard Channing and Helen Mirren, in her first stage role since October 2019, Victoria Delaney opens the play on her back and never leaves the stage (interval aside).

Delaney’s suburban housewife is coming round from unconsciousness, after knocking herself out when stepping on a garden rake, as Chris Pomfrett’s cautious yet accident-prone family doctor, Bill Windsor, attends to her. In a brilliant Ayckbourn conceit, his words, like her vision, go from a gobbledygook blur to being clear.

With the bang on the head comes the comforting concern of her champagne-golden  family, as if torn from a Mills & Boon cover or a desirable clothes catalogue: first, handsome old devil husband Andy (Paul French); then tennis-playing brother Tony (Neil Vincent) and her auburn-haired darling of a daughter, Lucy (YSCP debutante Amy Hall).

Too, too perfect, surely, and yet played as straight down the line as Tony practising a backhand winner, they could – at first at least – be real. We see and hear them, just as Susan sees and hears them, but only she does so, just like only urbane novelist Charles Condomine and the audience see and hear his deceased first wife, Elvira, in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit.

Living on a prayer: Paul Toy as vicar Gerald

The grim reality is very different: husband Gerald (clergyman’s son Paul Toy) is a self-obsessed priggish vicar, always in another room writing his interminably dull, interminably long parish history since 1387. They have reached the separate bed stage already.

Live-in sister-in-law Muriel (Helen Wilson) is obsessed with reconnecting with her late husband and is forever making foul-tasting beverages and even fouler meals, defeated by the lack of labelling on kitchen ingredients.

Wastrel son Rick (YSCP newcomer Frankie-Jo Anderson) is estranged and strange, having joined a cult in Hemel Hempstead, but suddenly he arrives with news.

Where once Susan loved being a wife and mother, now she is neglected by husband and son alike and unfulfilled in her humdrum, loveless domestic domain, Symbolically, the garden plants in Richard Hampton’s design are reduced to twigs, with the only flowers being on the backdrop tapestries, Susan’s bench and Muriel’s cardigan. What lies ahead beyond Susan’s disillusioned forties, her days as frustrating and stuck as a buffering laptop screen?

Muriel (Helen Wilson) serves up another gruesome beverage to vicar Gerald’s (Paul Toy) distaste

Ayckbourn, and in turn Millard and Delaney, capture a “woman on the verge”, and as the real and unreal worlds collide increasingly beyond her control, so too do the ever-blackening humour and pathos, her sanity crumbling and the words returning once more to gobbledygook.

Delaney’s performance is deeply unsettling, her Susan being full of vulnerability, waspish of tongue, her mind grasping desperately at the cliff’s edge, happiness out of reach.

Pomfrett, in particular, provides the comedy, perfectly in step with Ayckbourn’s rhythms; Toy makes the supercilious vicar utterly unbearable but splendidly sets himself up for laughter at his expense; Wilson judges just right how to be annoying yet not annoying as the never-wanted-where-she-is Muriel. Anderson’s disingenuous Rick would fall out with anyone.

French, Hall and Vincent are perfectly well cast as the fantasy family that gradually turns into a nightmare and Woman In Mind becomes a woman out of her mind.

Angie Millard was right: Ayckbourn’s play has indeed taken on even more resonance under the pandemic microscope, where already unhappy marriages have cracked under the strain and the desire to escape has been heightened in enforced isolation.

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York Theatre Royal opens applications for Green Shoots commissions for June shows

A montage of Love Bites performances at York Theatre Royal in May 2021

YORK Theatre Royal is to commission new work from dozens of York and North Yorkshire professional artists in a variety of art forms for performances in June.

The Green Shoots project is the follow-up to Love Bites, the showcase of 20 bite-sized works that marked the re-opening of the St Leonard’s Place theatre on May 17 and 18 2021 after the lifting of lockdown restrictions.

Replicating that format as the green shoots of recovery are given the chance to bloom, now comes Green Shoots, two nights of new theatre centred around “rebooting post-pandemic and looking to the future of the planet”.

From the call-out for applications that starts this week with a deadline of March 24, York Theatre Royal will select 20 commissions, offering £1,000 per commission, plus £150 each time they are performed.

Juliet Forster, the Theatre Royal’s creative director, says: “Love Bites last year was a joyous event that will live long in my mind, not just because we were re-opening after 14 months of enforced closure, but also because our stage was filled to overflowing with the tremendous talent and ingenuity of local artists.

“It was moving, spectacular, surprising, thought provoking and funny in equal measures. Now we’ve created this opportunity with Green Shoots because we’re excited to see what they will do next.”

York Theatre Royal creative director Juliet Forster

The work celebrating York and Yorkshire talent and live performance will be performed on the main stage on June 7 and 8 as part of the Theatre Royal’s Rumours & Rebels summer season.

“More than 2,000 artists across a variety of art forms applied for Love Bites and they ranged from spoken word to circus,” says Juliet. “The 2022 commissions should respond to the title Green Shoots in any way that can be interpreted.

“Pieces might be about hope, recovery, new beginnings, revolution, new life, growth, the environment or anything else that can be imagined as a response. The work should be able to be performed or shared both live and in a digital form and have a duration of up to five minutes.”

Artists may apply as individuals and/or as part of a collective. The Theatre Royal is keen to incorporate as wide a mix of art forms and interpretations of the theme as possible, welcoming submissions from artists working in any medium.

Interested artists are being asked to write a short proposal for their piece, how it might be performed live and how it would translate into a digital form. Submissions should be sent to commissions@yorktheatreroyal.co.uk by midday on March 24.

For more information on Green Shoots and how to apply, go to:  yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

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Ed Gamble goes Electric for new tour show, playing five Yorkshire gigs. First up, York

Stand-up sits down: Ed Gamble takes a breather between shows

MOCK The Week regular panellist Ed Gamble will be in Electric form at the Grand Opera House, York, tonight and Harrogate Royal Hall tomorrow at 7.30pm.

Co-creator of the food and comedy podcast Off Menu with fellow stand-up James Acaster, Taskmaster winner and Great British Menu judge, Gamble says he is “charged up and ready to flick the switch on another round of attention-seeking.”

Gamble, who has appeared on QI, The Russell Howard Hour, Would I Lie To You? and  8 Out Of 10 Cats, presents a Sunday morning show on Radio X with Matthew Crosby and has his own special, Blood Sugar, available on Amazon Prime.

He will play further Yorkshire gigs on his Electric tour at Hull City Hall on March 25; Bradford St George’s Hall on April 7; Sheffield City Hall on April 19 and Leeds City Varieties on April 22.

Box office: York, 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York; Harrogate, harrogatetheatre.co.uk; Hull, hulltheatres.co.uk; Bradford, bradford-theatres.co.uk; Sheffield, ticketmaster.co.uk/event/35005AB2E2A62A3A; Leeds, leedsheritagetheatres.com.

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Hope springs eternal in jam-packed concert season at National Centre for Early Music

Cantoria: Celebrating Early Music Day with El Jubilate concert on March 18

THE Spring Season is up and running at the National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, York.

In a busy first week, last Monday, folkloric duo Heal & Harrow’s Rachel Newton and Lauren MacColl paid a humanising tribute to those persecuted in the 16th and 17th century Scottish witch trials.

Last Friday, the Grace Smith Trio – Smith on fiddle, Sam Patridge, concertina, and Bevan Morris, double bass – performed with the participants in the National Youth Folk Ensemble (NYFE) programme, under the artistic direction of Partridge. The NCEM hosted the NYFE’s first residency in two years for workshops leading up to the concluding concert.

Saturday’s University of York Song Day took the theme of Shakespeare In Love in a programme devised by pianist and Ryedale Festival director Christopher Glynn, who was joined in a lunchtime concert by soprano Rowan Pierce and tenor Ed Lyon and later by mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge in a masterclass for student singers.

Moishe’s Bagel: Door-to-door delivery of klezmer and folk music on March 9

The University of York Baroque+ Day will follow on June 4 with the theme of 100 Years In Berlin: a day to explore the musical life of the Prussian capital – from the Baroque to the early Romantic period – in three concerts in the company of the University Baroque Ensemble, under the direction of Rachel Gray and guest leader Catherine Martin; pianist and broadcaster David Owen Norris and classical wind specialists Boxwood & Brass.

On Sunday evening, the Songlines Encounters Festival presented Kayhan Kalhor and fellow Iranian, musician and composer Kiya Tabassian, Kalhor’s student of many years, in an evening of exquisite improvisations. Kalhor is a virtuoso of the Persian spiked fiddle, the kamancheh, but here he performed on the setar, a four-stringed lute with 25 movable frets, often associated with Sufism.

“Our spring season is jam-packed with musical delights, welcoming in a new year with more than a little hope that 2022 will be happier and healthier for us all,” says NCEM director Delma Tomlin.

“Guest artists will include some of the finest folk, jazz, global and early music specialists on the circuit today, with highlights including the welcome return of sax virtuoso Snake Davis, the ever-entertaining Moishe’s Bagel and folk legends Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham, whose concert is finally on after repeated postponements in lockdown.

NCEM director Delma Tomlin: “Welcoming in a new year with more than a little hope that 2022 will be happier and healthier for us all”

“As ever, we offer a warm welcome to artists from across the world and are particularly delighted to welcome the vibrant strings of VOŁOSI; qanun specialist Maya Youssef, from Syria, and the sparklingly young vocal ensemble Cantoria from Spain. All are guaranteed to bring warmth, entertainment and joy to our audiences.”

Coming next, on March 9, will be the return of Edinburgh’s Moishe’s Bagel with their cutting-edge klezmer and folk music, combining life-affirming Eastern European dance music, Middle Eastern rhythms and virtuoso improvised performances. Expect new pieces alongside favourites.

On March 11, Scottish folk duo Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham combine humorous banter with heartstring-tugging tunes, joyous reels and melodies aplenty in a partnership that has runs to 30 years now.

Booked for March 17, powerhouse English folk trio Faustus have spent much of the past two years researching and writing new material from the poetry of the 1860s’ Lancashire Cotton Famine, resulting in moving new songs, as heard on the Cotton Lords EP. 

Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham: Playing together for three decades

In the line-up will be Benji Kirkpatrick, from the Seth Lakeman Band, Steeleye Span and Bellowhead; Saul Rose, from Waterson:Carthy, Eliza Carthy’s Wayward Band and Whapweazel, and Paul Sartin, from Bellowhead and Belshazzar’s Feast.

Cantoría celebrate the 2022 Early Music Day with El Jubilate, a March 18 programme drawn from the Spanish songbooks of the Renaissance, brimful of desire, passion and sin, but fiery devotion, love, joy and solitude too.

At 7pm, Cantoria – featuring soprano Inés Alonso, countertenor Oriol Guimera, tenor Jorge Losana and bass Valentin Miralles – explore a world of demons, saints and people that lived with the same complicated emotions that we face today.

This Spanish ensemble gave a performance at the Beverley and East Riding Early Music Festival four years and have participated in the EEEMerging+ programme for two years. They will be in residence at the NCEM in March, leading up to the concert.

Trish Clowes with her My Iris band members: Seeing eye to eye in York on May 3. Picture: Brian Homer

Innovative folk accordionist, vocalist and clog dancer Hannah James, a key figure in the revival of English percussive dance, unites with globetrotting, post-classical, improvisational French cellist Toby Kuhn for Sleeping Spirals, an April 8 concert full of playful chemistry, warmth and soul, as they resume their new project started last autumn.

On April 20, led by British composer and violinist Christian Garrick, Budapest Café Orchestra perform a blistering barrage of traditional folk and gypsy- flavoured music that takes in the Balkans and Russia, Klezmer laments, Romanian doinas, Hungarian czadas and their own re-imaginings of big tunes by classical greats.

Flook, in the NCEM diary for April 27, take inspiration from Irish and English sources, weaving and spinning traditionally rooted tunes over precise acoustic grooves with a bold, adventurous musical imagination, as whistle player Brian Finnegan, flautist Sarah Allen, guitarist Ed Boyd and bodhran player Joihn Joe Kelly have been doing for more than 25 years.

Saxophonist-to-the-stars Snake Davis is welcomed back to the NCEM on April 28, this time in a new venture with arranger, composer and pianist Robin A Smith, musical director for the London Olympics opening ceremony in 2012.

Snake Davis and Robin A Smith: New venture at the NCEM on April 28

Sparring partners for decades, spearheading the Classic Chillout movement 20 years ago, they now team up to celebrate the joy and power of classical, folk, pop and jazz music.

Another saxophonist, Trish Clowes, leads her jazz band My Iris in their York debut on May 3, providing pianist Ross Stanley, guitarist Chris Montague and drummer James Maddren with a high-intensity platform for individual expression and improvisation, delivering driving grooves and lingering melodic lines, as they “seamlessly morph between earthy restlessness and futuristic dreamscapes”.

The Yorkshire Silent Film Festival returns to the NCEM on May 10 to present the 1929 Indian box-office smash A Throw Of The Dice (PG), accompanied by an improvised live score by Utsav Lal, a young Indian pianist noted for his innovative piano renditions of Hindustani ragas.

Based on an episode from The Mahabarata, this lavishly romantic silent film tells the story of rival Indian kings – one good, one bad – who fall in love with the same woman. Filmed in India with 10,000 extras, 1,000 horses, 50 elephants and an all-star Indian cast, it rivals Cecil B De Mille for screen spectacle.

VOŁOSI : Seeking to “exceed the limits of string instruments” on May 23

After 700 concerts in 34 countries, the string-driven VOŁOSI make their NCEM debut on May 23, led by violinist Krzysztof Lasoń and cellist Stanisław Lasoń, who first joined forces with traditional performers deep in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains in 2010. From those roots, the Polish band seek to “exceed the limits of string instruments” with their modern, powerful and emotional playing.

On June 9, Maya Youssef, queen of the qanun, the 78-stringed Middle Eastern plucked zither, showcases Finding Home, an album that takes a journey through memories and the essence of home, both within and without, as she explores the emotional and healing qualities of music.

“It’s about finding that place of peace, that place of softness, comfort and healing, which manifests in everyone in a unique way, from finding home in nature to the people who make us feel that sense of relief and peace,” says Maya, who will be joined by the musicians from the recording sessions that were rooted in the Arabic classical tradition but forged pathways into jazz, Western classical and flamenco styles too.

For Maya, who was born in Damascus, Syria, and has lived in the UK since 2012, the act of playing music is a both a life and hope-affirming act and an antidote to what is happening, not only in Syria, but across the world.

This will be the first of three concerts to be staged at the NCEM under the umbrella of the York Festival of Ideas. In the second, on June 12, guitarist, composer and ukulele virtuoso Richard Durrant at last cycles into York on his Covid-delayed Music For Midsummer musical pilgrimage from Orkney to Brighton Open Air Theatre for the summer solstice.

Maya Youssef: Finding Home at the NCEM on June 9

Expect plenty of tales from the road, as well as original guitar music, British-flavoured folk and Bach on the uke as he celebrates the release of his Rewilding album.

For the third concert, double bassist and composer Alison Rayner leads her vibrant, award-winning quintet through “songs without words” on June 17 in the company of Buster Birch, drums, Deirdre Cartwright, guitar, Diane McLoughlin, saxophones, and Steve Lodder, piano.  

Their music-making combines richly nuanced compositions, rhythmic interplay and folk-infused melodies with a cinematic quality, a love of improvisation and a strong sense of narrative.

Already booked for the autumn are She’koyokh, an international seven-piece klezmer and Balkan band from London, on October 30 (6.30pm) and Scottish fiddler, composer John McCusker, celebrating his 30th anniversary as a professional musician, on November 2.

Performances start at 7.30pm unless stated otherwise. Box office: 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk.

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Marti Pellow talks architecture? Learn more in Two Big Egos In A Small Car episode 78

TWO Big Egos In A Small Car arts podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson compare notes on their separate interviewing experiences with Marti Pellow, smarty fellow of pop, ahead of his York Barbican greatest hits show on May 3.

Prompted by his Wet Wet Wet exit, Chalmers & Hutch then discuss famous bands’ substitute singers, from Genesis to AC/DC, Black Sabbath to Buzzcocks.

Plus why Kenneth Branagh’s second Agatha Christie revamp, Death On The Nile, bristles with much more than Poirot’s monumental moustache; Harry Sword’s deep dive of a book on drone music, Monolithic Undertow – In search Of Sonic Oblivion… and a Sting in the tail end.

To listen, head to: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/10087660

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Betcha by golly wow, The Stylistics are on their way to York Barbican in November

The Stylistics: “We can’t wait to be back in the UK”

PHILADELPHIA soul veterans The Stylistics will play York Barbican on November 27 on their 27-date autumn tour.

Further Yorkshire dates will follow at Halifax Victoria Theatre on November 29 and Sheffield City on November 30, each starting at 7.30pm.

The Stylistics will tour with founder members Airrion Love and Herb Murrell, both 72, alongside ‘Bo’ Henderson and Jason Sharp.

“We can’t wait to back in the UK performing all our hits, bringing back great memories and having a great evening with you all,” they say.

Formed in 1968 with a line-up of Russell Thompkins Jr, Love, Murrell, James Smith and James Dunn, they notched Seventies’ hits with such harmonious highs as I’m Stone In Love With You, You Make Me Feel Brand New, Let’s Put It All Together, Betcha By Golly Wow, Break Up To Make Up, You’ll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart) and You Are Everything.

Tickets for the October 28 to December 2 tour go on sale at 9am on Friday on 0844 888 9991 or at ticketline.co.uk. For York, yorkbarbican.co.uk; Sheffield, sheffieldcityhall.co.uk; Halifax, victoriatheatre.co.uk.

The Stylistics, the statistics

Seven Gold albums; five Gold singles; two Double Gold singles; eight Platinum albums; one Double Platinum album; four Platinum singles; Grammy nomination in 1974 for You Make Me Feel Brand New; plaque on Walk Of Fame, Center City, Philadelphia, 1994; inductees into Vocal Group Hall Of Fame, May 2004.

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Michele Bianco and Pascale Rentsch venture off the beaten track for natural world exhibition at Watermark Gallery

Work by Michele Bianco and Pascale Rentsch: On show at Watermark Gallery, Harrogate, from March 4

YORKSHIRE ceramicist Michele Bianco and Scottish painter Pascale Rentsch will head Off The Beaten Track for Watermark Gallery’s spring exhibition in Harrogate.

Both cite venturing out into hidden areas of the natural world as inspiration for work created exclusively for a show that will run from March 4 to April 2 at Liz and Richard Hawkes’s gallery in Royal Parade.

“From time spent on long-distance walks and the coastal paths of North Yorkshire and Northumberland, to the Western Isles and Scottish lochs, both artists draw on the effect of the elements on those environments to seek out compositions and shapes to inform their work,” says curator Liz.

Ceramicist Michele Bianco

Originally from Stokesley, avid hiker Bianco makes works inspired by the landscape of northern England and the Scottish Highlands, where her two studios are based. For Watermark Gallery, she has fashioned intricate and beautiful forms from a variety of stoneware clays.

“I try to make work which, in a small way, expresses the beauty I see around me and the way it makes me feel,” she says.

Meanwhile, Bianco is making tracks of a different kind, as she is almost half-way through an epic 1,000km trek from her former studio in Yarm, Cleveland, to her West Highland base.

Split Sphere vessel, stoneware, by Michele Bianco

As she walks the route in stages, natural phenomena such as Teesdale’s Whin Sill, along with the Northumbrian coastline, have influenced the vessels, spheres and bowls that will be exhibited at Watermark Gallery.

“Michele is fascinated by the world around her, from the intricate tracery of winter trees to the passage of time and the way changes are evidenced in the geology of the landscape,” says Liz.

“Her creations represent an intense synergy between form and environment, and like the artist herself, they exude a deep connection to our natural world.

“Michele’s hand-carved ripple vessels, in their distinctive blue cobalt glazes, reflect centuries of erosion by water and wind on rock.”

Painter Pascale Rentsch at work

Swiss-born Pascale Rentsch, who lives in East Lothian, is a proponent of plein-air painting, immersing herself in the beauty of her surrounding coast and countryside. “I am always moved when painting in nature, because wherever I look, I feel hope,” says the 2021 winner of the RSW Scottish Arts Club Award.

“That hope is abundantly clear when viewing her deeply sensitive and touching paintings, where Pascale captures the immediacy of changing weather and light through the seasons, often in challenging conditions, ” says Liz, ahead of launching Watermark Gallery’s new season.

Seashells, mixed media, by Pascale Rentsch

“As we all look forward to longer, warmer days, the work of these two accomplished artists might just inspire some of us to ‘head off the beaten track’ too.”

Off The Beaten Track, Watermark Gallery, Royal Parade, Harrogate, March 4 to April 2. Artists Michele Bianco and Pascale Rentsch will attend a preview on March 4 from 6pm to 8pm. To join them, RSVP by telephoning the gallery on 01423 562659 or by emailing harrogate@watermarkgallery.co.uk.

Gallery opening hours are 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday; check out the website at watermarkgallery.co.uk to view the exhibition online.

The exhibition poster for Off The Beaten Track at Watermark Gallery, Harrogate, featuring one of Michele Bianco’s ceramics