Category: Breaking News

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Susan Brown returns to York Minster architecture for Kentmere House show

York Minster, by Yorkshire artist Susan Brown

YORKSHIRE artist Susan Brown is exhibiting her architectural paintings of York Minster at Kentmere House Galllery, Scarcroft Hill, York, until July 4.

Her artistic focus is on city life and our relationship with our environment, exploring the rhythm and movement within buildings and interiors, along with creating beautiful abstract paintings, inspired by still-life subjects and landscapes, with an emphasis on texture and pattern.

Susan, who lives in Birdsedge, Huddersfield, exhibits both in Yorkshire nationally. Initially, she studied 3-D Design at Leeds College of Art, since when she has developed her two prime areas of interest, interior design and contemporary painting, in tandem.

The painting side of Susan has involved numerous commissions and several projects where she worked both as designer and artist.

York Minster, window detail, by Susan Brown

She paints theatrical and musical scenes, still life and landscape, but is most associated with her architectural subjects, especially cityscapes. “Her paintings are bold and striking, predominantly worked in watercolour and acrylic,” says Kentmere House Gallery owner Ann Petherick. “Her style is immediately recognisable.

“In recent years, she has focused on architectural studies of a range of European cityscapes, such as Prague, Lille, Paris Venice. Since lockdown, she has enjoyed her return to painting York.”

Susan’s musical interest has incorporated the role of artist-in-residence at the 1994 York Early Music Festival, as part of the series arranged by Kentmere House Gallery.

Her paintings appear in private and public contemporary art collections aplenty, among them Halifax Plc, Allied Domecq, the Sir George Martin Trust, the Universities of York and Sheffield, HBOS and the National Trust.

York Minster, West Front, by Susan Brown

Susan has exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Watercolour Society and New English Art Club, as well as many independent galleries in London and across the country.

She has received many art prizes and awards, including the Laing Art Competition, Hunting Art Prize (regional winner) and Penrose Purchase Prize, and has published several books of her work. The latest, Landscape, will be published later this year, featuring her more abstract work.

“Susan has been showing at Kentmere House Gallery since 1990 and her new collection of paintings of York Minster is on show through late-May, throughout June and into early July,” says Ann. “The gallery is open anytime by prior arrangement or chance: you can ring or email, or just take pot luck by ringing the bell. Please ring in advance if travelling any distance.”

Kentmere House Gallery’s next open weekend will be on June 5 and 6, 11am to 5pm; the gallery has a weekly late-evening opening on Thursdays to 9pm. Ann can be contacted on 01904 656507 or 07801 810825 or at ann.petherick@kentmerehouse.co.uk.

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Musicians’ art show Super Cool Drawing Machine heads to The Crescent

The Super Cool Drawing Machine T-shirt on sale in the exhibition gift shop

SUPER Cool Drawing Machine, Yuppies Music’s touring exhibition of musicians’ “other” work, will run at The Crescent community venue, York, from Thursday to Sunday.

This celebration of art created by international touring independent musicians is billed as a “much-needed exploration of FUN stuff”, on show each day from 11am to 9pm with Covid-secure measures in place.

Under social distancing restrictions, attendees will have to book in advance, choosing a specific time slot to view the exhibition. Consequently, only a small number of tickets are available at £5 for each time slot at seetickets.com.

“Over the moon” to be supported by Arts Council England, Yuppies Music and York music promoters Please Please You will present works by renowned musicians from alternative, experimental, jazz, folk, rock, soul, ambient, indie backgrounds.

Among them will be trailblazing saxophonist and figurehead of the British jazz scene Shabaka Hutchings; Mercury-nominated Welsh singer/producer Cate Le Bon; experimental folk musician Richard Dawson; African-American experimentalist Lonnie Holley and drummer/composer Seb Rochford, plus members of This Is The Kit, Mammal Hands, Haiku Salut, Snapped Ankles and more besides.

On display from May 27 to 30 will be paintings, photography, drawings, ceramics, digital instillations, recycled arts, sculpture and furniture, adding up to “colourful and interactive arts for the open-minded and curious”, complemented by a gift shop.

The full listing of artists is: Bex Burch, of Vula Viel; Bryony Jarman-Pinto; night flight: Cate Le Bon; H. Hawkline; Tim Presley; Cloudshoes; Daisuke Tanabe; Ed Dowie; Francois & The Atlas Mountains; Haiku Salut; Holysseus Fly; Ichi; Jeffrey Lewis…

…Leafcutter John; Lonnie Holley; Mammal Hands; Peter Broderick; Poppy Ackroyd; Rachael Dadd; Richard Dawson; Rhodri Davies; Rozi Plain; Seb Rochford; Shabaka Hutchings; Snapped Ankles; Tara Clerkin; This Is The Kit; Yama Warashi and Yumi And The Weather.

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Canadian folk singer-songwriter Ben Caplan to play Pocklington Arts Centre autumn gig

Ben Caplan: Playing Pocklington Arts Centre in the autumn. Picture: Jamie Kronick

CANADIAN folk-rock singer-songwriter Ben Caplan will play Pocklington Arts Centre on November 11 on his European autumn tour. 

His extensive itinerary will mark the tenth anniversary of his October 2011 debut, In The Time Of The Great Remembering, and will follow hot on the heels of Recollection, a retrospective collection of stripped back re-interpretations of songs from his back catalogue, out in October. 

Pocklington Arts Centre venue manager James Duffy says: “I saw Ben perform at Cambridge Folk Festival in 2019 and was blown away, like the rest of the audience, with his performance. 

“He has a fantastic stage presence and mixes a wonderful blend of musical styles from folk to gypsy through to rock. Imagine the love child of Tom Waits and Gogol Bordello and you’re getting somewhere close.”

Caplan, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, combines timeless melodies with a contemporary folk-rock twist, channelling wild abandon and quiet introspection in songs that evoke both the roar of the hurricane and the eye of the storm. 

Caplan’s support act will be fellow Canadian Gabrielle Papillon, whose 2019 album, Shout, was propelled by equal parts synth, big pianos, and anger, “exploding in thoughtful, danceable art-pop anthems of uprising, hope and a delirious celebration of self”. 

James says: “I’m delighted Gabrielle is accompanying Ben on this tour, as his support, as this enables PAC to introduce our audiences to another acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter. 

“I first saw Gabrielle perform at a Music Nova Scotia showcase event, several years ago, and have followed her career ever since.”

Tickets for Caplan’s 8pm show are on sale at £12 at pocklingtonartscenytre.co.uk or £14 on the door. 

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Peter Heaton’s photos and Peter Maris’s sculptures go on show at Dalby Forest

Dalby, by Peter Heaton, from the Residuum exhibition at The Courtyard, Low Dalby

PETER Heaton’s photographs combine with Peter Maris’s sculptures in the Residuum exhibition on show at The Courtyard, Low Dalby, Dalby Forest, near Pickering, until the end of August.

“All the work pretty much has been made during the lockdown period,” says artist/photographer Heaton. “It’s quite different for me, as I usually work in black and white, but as normal for my work, it’s heavily atmospheric, and this time it’s a collaborative project.”

Inspired by a particular forest environment and how it has formed, flourishes and changes through natural processes and human activity, Heaton and Maris’s “rich and sumptuous” exhibition” presents multi-layered photographs alongside intriguing carved stone sculptures that took the micro-climate and life within the forest’s small glacial valleys as a focal point for examination and creative exploration.

Sculpture, by Peter Maris, from the Residuum exhibition

Residuum is among the outcomes of an artist residency commissioned by Forestry England and supported by Arts Council England, wherein Maris invited Heaton to engage in a collaborative programme.

Heaton’s striking images were all made in a small area of the forest at High Staindale that contains a complex of several short steep valleys known locally as Griffs and Slacks. These features were created by glacial melt water and lie close to the prehistoric Dargate Dikes linear boundary.

“In this most ancient area of the forest, sunlight very rarely penetrates the valleys that seem to exude their own pale, green light,” he says. “They are full of fallen and decaying trees that are passing through continuous transformation as they moulder into the rocky forest floor. In my images these are atmospheric spaces, dominated by mosses, ferns, deep shadows and …silence.”

“Quite different for me, as I usually work in black and white, but as normal for my work, it’s heavily atmospheric,” says photographer Peter Heaton

In The Courtyard gallery, two large panoramic compositions flank either side of the exhibition space, examining and celebrating the rich array of minutiae that makes up the ever-changing forest floor, all photographically woven into complex, layered tapestries that reveal unexpected detail, colour and textures.

In contrast, four images printed onto Light Sheets on the gallery’s main wall alternate between illuminating the space with that “pale green light” and then darkening, shifting to reveal the woodland’s mysterious, primaeval qualities.

“There is constant change at work in these valleys, but it’s imperceptible, a slow decomposition and green rebirth brought about by nature’s agents of change,” says Heaton.

Forest, by Peter Heaton, on display at The Courtyard, Low Dalby

The sculptures are inspired by the same subject matter but, importantly, are also a creative response to the photographic compositional processes. “They are intentionally focused towards a ‘picture-plane’ presentation and deal with the surface issues in sculptural composition,” says Maris.

“These new pieces use the very rugged, textured, natural ‘bed’ surface of the stone as an appropriate visual metaphor in which to explore with a range of mark-making techniques, but that also refer to natural growth forms, decomposition and human activity.”

In this project, Maris has found the opportunity to broaden his sculptural expression beyond the boundaries of conventional stone-carving practice and introduce a greater spontaneity in approach and response.

The Residuum exhibition at The Courtyard, Low Dalby

“In these sculptures, I wanted to develop new creative routes in stone and I felt free to compose and draw with the chisel in a very loose and painterly manner,” says Maris. “Colour has been introduced too, both by chance discovery and by deliberation.”

The natural textures of the stones have given rise to imaginative and creative play in the carving process. “Surface features and shapes are undercut and pierced, revealing apertures in the stone, posing references to the earth’s surface as a fragile membrane that can be broken or eroded through human activity and natural environmental processes.”

Heaton concludes: “With people becoming increasingly appreciative of the benefits of spending more time outdoors, perhaps a visit to the exhibition combined with walk through Dalby Forest would be just the ticket in the coming months.”

The exhibition poster for Residuum



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REVIEW: York Stage, Songs From The Settee – Live On Stage, until Sunday

Girls just wanna have fun: The first night of Songs From The Settee -Live On Stage

Review: York Stage in Songs From The Settee – Live On Stage, Theatre @41, Monkgate, York, until Sunday. Box office: yorkstagemusicals.com

SOFA, so good, that Nik Briggs decided to transfer Songs From The Settee from a streaming home service in lockdown to the John Cooper Studio for the first step in Step 3’s return to live theatre.

The York Stage producer-director had expected the home-recorded song sessions to run for maybe three weeks, instead they stretched to ten, as he told Thursday’s first-night audience in his role as master of ceremonies at the reopened Theatre @41.

Seating was cabaret-style, in social bubbles around tables, and protective Perspex screens were in place, just as they had been for Jack And The Beanstalk, the Covid-curtailed York Stage pantomime. Masks were obligatory; drink orders brought by staff to the tables.

Last summer, York Stage had resumed performing with a brace of songs-from-the-shows programmes in the open air of the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, showcasing the singing chops of members past and present, socially distanced but able to combine solo spotlights and duets with lightly choreographed group numbers.

For Songs From The Settee – Live On Stage, nights one and two feature one company of solo singers under the musical direction of Jess Douglas; tomorrow and Sunday, different soloists under MD Stephen Hackshaw.

Across the four nights too, Nik and his two MDs are determined to turn the spotlight on recent stage-school graduates amid such difficult times for studying and breaking into the profession.

Solo performances are dominating, book-ended by group opening and closing numbers, last night being launched by Joanne Theaker, Lauren Sheriston and  Sophie Hammond in Waitress mode for What Baking Can Do, one for all those who filled lockdown hours perfecting banana bread.

Assured, chuffed-to-be-playing-to-an-audience showcases followed for graduates with a York Stage teenage past, Stephanie Bolsher and Talia Firth, and, in between, University of York music student Elodie Lawry, ahead of her degree show on the theme of the underdog in musical theatre on Monday before becoming an Army musician. Holly Smith will have her showcases too over the remaining shows.

Nik Briggs and Jess Douglas: York Stage director and musical director for the first two nights of Songs From The Settee – Live On Stage

Joanne Theaker, in a skirt of Liquorice Allsorts colours, set a very high bar, as she always does, with a superbly balanced set, from Carole King’s big hug of an opener, You’ve Got A Friend, to a singalong Shout, via a humdinger of a duet with Briggs for Written In The Stars from Aida and the haunting Maybe This Time from Cabaret.

Best of all was the character piece, the tear-inducing Scarborough from Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s musical version of Calendar Girls. York Stage have acquired the performing rights and you can bet your house on Joanne being in the cast.

Lauren Sheriston wondered how she could match up to Jo, but she has always been a stand-out in her York Stage shows, and her voice has matured wonderfully, equally at home in the contrasting Son Of A Preacher Man, Will You, from Ghost, and She Used To Be Mine, from Waitress, while Landslide from the Stevie Nicks repertoire for Fleetwood Mac was an inspired pick. We Will Rock You’s Somebody To Love was the Mount Everest of a finale, and Lauren climbed to the peaks with panache.

   
Sophie Hammond favoured the most contemporary set, one that made CharlesHutchPress feel a tad out of touch at 60, when encountering Breathe (In The Heights), Kiss The Air (Scott Alan), Issues (Julia Michaels), Ready For You (Matthew Stuart Price) and Don’t Forget Me (Smash).

Sophie’s choice would have benefited from a wider range of tempo, but Helpless, from Hamilton, was a knock-out, Monster, from Frozen, was full of Disney drama and Domino knocked spots off Jessie J’s original.

How else could the all-female bill end but with Joanne, Lauren and Sophie all smiles, happy to be back on stage, in tandem for a celebratory Girls Just Wanna Have Fun after perhaps a few too many sad songs overall.

Thanks, too, to Jess Douglas’s ensemble on keyboards, bass/double bass and drums . Over to Stephen Hackshaw for tomorrow and Sunday, when Grace Lancaster, Conor Mellor, Damien Poole and Emily Ramsden will be on the bill.

As for the “Settee” of the show title, familiar to York Stage regulars from past company service, it took a back seat. “Is it clean?” asked Joanne. “Yes,” said Nik. Anti-bac and all that, to meet the demands of presenting Covid-secure performances. No doubt it will be this way for some time yet, but step by step, theatre will revive, and York Stage will be to the fore.   

And what about your own seat for the show? Hurry, hurry, only a few were still available at the last time of checking.

The York Stage poster for Songs From The Settee – Live On Stage, the first show at Theatre @ 41, Monkgate, since late-December


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Manic Street Preachers…pretentious or what? Up for Chalmers & Hutch debate in Two Big Egos In A Small Car episode 43

WHAT’s up with chatty art podcast duo Chalmers & Hutch? We need to talk about two steps forward, but Step 3 stumble? Deer Shed at Base Camp. LIVE theatre at last! Marc Bolan & T Rex: 21st Century Boy. Street art & what makes a “hero” fit for a mural?

Oh, and yes, Manic Street Preachers…pretentious or what?

Here’s the link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1187561/8550398

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Bev Jones Music Company reopen Joseph Rowntree Theatre with Strictly Cabaret

Strictly Cabaret performers Chris Hagyard, Terry Ford, Larry Gibson and Claire Pulpher

THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in York, reopens its doors tonight with Covid-secure measures, socially distanced seating plan and the first of three performances of Strictly Cabaret.

Bev Jones Music Company principals Claire Pulpher, Chris Hagyard, Terry Ford and Larry Gibson will don their finest to entertain with a glittering cabaret set of their favourites at 7.30pm, to be followed by 2.30pm and 7.30pm performances tomorrow.

“Rat Pack, swing style, top musicals, film favourites, you name it, they will sing it,” says producer Lesley Jones. “Just sit back, reflect upon the year, clear your minds and be thoroughly entertained in the manner befitting the Bev Jones Music Company.

“All the cast will be principal performers in our June production of Jesus Christ Superstar at Rowntree Park, directed by Claire, who will play Mary, alongside Chris as Judas, Terry as Caiaphas and Larry as Pilate.”

Under the present JoRo regulations for Step 3 reopening, the Bev Jones Music Company (BJMC) were permitted a company of only four. “That proved to be a headache,” admits Lesley. “How can you entice an audience to a BJMC show with so few cast members? But by offering diversification in content, I think we’ve pulled it off by aiming at all age groups.”

Claire Pulpher: Performing songs from Hamilton and Wicked, Alto’s Lament and a Whitney dancefloor filler

Introducing the Strictly Cabaret programme, Lesley says: “In a forward-thinking move, Claire sings songs from Hamilton and Wicked and the hilarious Alto’s Lament, then changes style with a superb dance-based Whitney Houston number, I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

“Chris sings the powerful Pity The Child from Chess, the ever popular I Believe, plus a great swing performance of Mack The Knife and Cry Me A River; Terry performs Stars from Les Miserables, How Wonderful You Are and Tomorrow Never Comes, and Larry has chosen Luck Be A Lady, his favourite rock number from Chess, The Arbiter, plus the swing number The Lady Is A Tramp.”

Anything else, Lesley? “They’ll also all sing duets, trios and big group numbers, such as There Is Nothin’ Like A Dame and songs from Cabaret, Joseph and Abba,” she says.

“You can expect lots of humour and fun, plus power and pathos, but it was important to offer a chink of light after these dark days and hopefully remind people of a positive future.”

For tickets, go to: josephrowntree.co.uk. Jesus Christ Superstar will be staged at the Rowntree Park Amphitheatre, York, on June 12, 3pm, and June 13, 2pm and 5pm; same box office.

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In the week of World Bee Day, Pocklington Arts Centre installs beehive up on the roof

To bee or not to bee: Pocklington beekeeper and Pocklington Arts Centre volunteer Paul Jennings installs a hive on the PAC rooftop in the hope of establishing a colony of up to 10,000 bees

WHAT’S the buzz? Tell me what’s-a-happening at Pocklington Arts Centre?

On World Bee Day (20/5/2021), director Janet Farmer was stung into action to say: “We thought there’s no better time to unveil the beehive we’ve installed on the roof.

“We’re a hive of activity, and not just because we’re preparing to re-open our doors to the public. It’s because we now have a rooftop beehive, along with solar panels and the beginnings of a rooftop garden, in the hope of playing a part in helping to save the bees.” 

Explaining the decision, Janet says: “Pocklington Arts Centre (PAC) is committed to seeking ways in which we can reduce our carbon footprint, while doing what we can to support the environment, so when one of our team mentioned he kept bees, we thought a hive would be the perfect addition to our flat roof, alongside our solar panels.

“We’re really excited to have installed the hive and are looking forward to seeing how it becomes established over the spring and summer months. Hopefully, we may even be in a position to produce our very own PAC honey soon!”

The avid amateur beekeeper in question is Paul Jennings, chair of PAC’s management team, who has gifted a hive from his Pocklington home to the Market Place venue.

“With every hive that is set up, you are giving bees a home, which is the important thing,” says Paul, who will be keeping an eye on the rooftop hive as it becomes established potentially with up to 10,000 bees. 

“Every home you set up for bees to occupy is something that helps the environment, hence the decision to put a hive on the arts centre roof. Hopefully, we’ll get a resident hive of bees in there soon.”

World Bee Day, abuzz with activity yesterday, has been created by the United Nations with the aim of raising global public awareness around the importance of protecting and preserving bees and other pollinators. 

Thirteen bee species have been lost since 1900 and as many as another 35 are on the threatened species list. The changes in seasonal weather are causing problems for bees in finding food and places to nest. What’s more, in the past 60 years, 97 per cent of our vital grasslands have been lost, meaning bees have lost some of their most precious habitats. 

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St Lawrence Trinity Festival marks £410,000 organ restoration with recitals

Undergoing restoration: The organ at St Lawrence Parish Church after its move from St Michael-le-Belfrey

YORK Minster is not the only church building in York with a headline-making organ restoration project.

By comparison with the £2 million price tag to dismantle, clean and repair the 5,400 pipes of the cathedral’s grand organ, a sum of £410,000 has perked up the 1885 Denman organ at St Lawrence Parish Church, in Lawrence Street.

In an alternative kind of organ donation, It had been transferred from St Michael-le-Belfrey for restoration and installation by Malvern organ-building firm Nicholson & Co at St Lawrence.

St Lawrence Parish Church in Lawrence Street: York’s second largest ecclesiastical building

To mark the project’s completion, the Anglican 19th century church will hold the St Lawrence Trinity Festival of music and services from May 29 to June 5 in light of the Step 3 relaxation of the Coronavirus restrictions.

The festival programme will include a demonstration of the organ by Nicholson & Co ahead of the inaugural recital by Robert Sharpe, York Minster organist and director of music, on May 29 at 10.30am.

In a Festal Choral Evensong on May 30, the restored organ will be blessed by the Bishop of Whitby, the Right Reverend Paul Ferguson, at 6.30pm. 

“The church finally has an organ worthy of its size,” says Jonty Ward, director of music at St Lawrence Parish Church, where he will play a recital on June 3

Looking forward to the restorative festival, Jonty Ward, director of music at St Lawrence, says: “We are very pleased to have such a brilliant range of musicians from York coming to take part in the Trinity Festival 2021, and that there is such a magnificent instrument at the very centre of it.

“St Lawrence is the second-largest ecclesiastical building in York after only the Minster, providing plenty of space for people to attend the festival and safely enjoy the fantastic music as the church finally has an organ worthy of its size.”

Throughout the festival week, further organ recitals will be performed by musicians associated with St Lawrence and the City of York: William Campbell, May 31, 4pm; David Norton, June 1, 4pm; Jonty Ward, June 3, 4pm, and Timothy Hone, music and liturgy administrator at York Minster, June 4, 4pm.

The 1885 Denman organ, restored by Nicholson & Co

The Black Sheep Consort will give a 7pm recital on May 31; the feast of Corpus Christi will be marked with a Sung Mass on June 3 at 7.30pm, and the festival will culminate with Choral Matins on June 5 at 11.30am.

Attendance is free to all the events, but booking is required for the Inaugural Recital (May 29) and the Festal Choral Evensong (May 30) at festival@stlawrenceparishchurch.org.uk.

St Lawrence Parish Church is on Lawrence Street, just east of Walmgate Bar, York. Postcode: YO10 3WP.

The retro-designed poster for the St Lawrence Trinity Festival 2021