Benjamin Francis Leftwich: New album, richer sound, candid lyrics. Picture: Harry Pearson
YORK singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich will embark on an eight-date headline tour next spring, opening at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on April 4, in support of his new album.
Set for release on February 9 on his regular label since becoming Dirty Hit Records’ first signing, Some Things Break follows 2021’s To Carry A Whale, 2019’s Gratitude, 2016’s After The Rain and 2011’s Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm.
All written and performed by London-based Benjamin, the track listing will be: I’m Always Saying Sorry; Moon Landing Hoax; Break In The Weather; New York; Some Things Break; Spokane, Washington; God’s Best; A Love Like That; Only You and Don’t Give Up On The Light.
The cover artwork for Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s fifth album, Some Things Break, out on February 9 2024
Composed over the past two years at locations across the globe, from London to Nashville, Washington to Stockholm, Some Things Break was produced by Grammy Award-winning Jimmy Hogarth, who can name Amy Winehouse, Sia and Antony And The Johnsons among his production clients.
Some Things Break also features collaborations with fellow songwriters Mikky Ekko, The 1975’s Jamie Squire and Jon Green and reveals a broader range in Benjamin’s voice, while calling on richer instrumentation by comparison with the more stripped-back sound of his earlier work.
His acoustic guitar remains present throughout, but at times is backed with piano, choirs, drumbeats and effects that create a dense and layered soundscape for his vocal candour and vulnerability.
“It’s a record about a kind of slow acceptance that some things break and, for me, sometimes that’s necessary for healing,” says Benjamin. Picture: Harry Pearson
Reflecting on this new direction, with its subtle reinvention in his sound and honesty laid bare in his lyrics, 34-year-old Benjamin says: “It feels like a new voice, in a way. I guess a more human and perhaps a more surrendered voice.
“Learning to hold onto certain things and let go of others, with as much grace as possible, I feel like I’m hiding less on this record. Ultimately, I think it’s a record about a kind of slow acceptance that some things break and, for me, sometimes that’s necessary for healing.”
Some Things Break is preceded by the single Moon Landing Hoax, out now with a live video Landing directed by Harvey Pearson and starring Jamie Squire performing alongside Benjamin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCG83YjC15U).
“It feels like a new voice, in a way. I guess a more human and perhaps a more surrendered voice,” says Benjamin. Picture: Harry Pearson
“To me this song is about healing, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, and about all the mad sh*t one can get up to or into on that winding road,” says Benjamin. “I’m so excited to be back on the road next year and to play many new and old songs live again.”
His fellow York musician, The Howl & The Hum bassist and keyboards player Bradley Blackwell, was overheard at the close of the third and final night of the original line-up’s farewell Crescent shows this week that he would be working with Benjamin on the tour. Watch this space.
As ever, Benjamin will be giving his material a fresh perspective when adapting both seasoned fan favourites and songs from Some Things Break in an intimate setting in his shows at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on April 4; Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal, April 5; Summerhall, Edinburgh, April 6; Band On The Wall, Manchester, April 8; Lantern, Bristol, April 9; Earth Theatre, London; Acapela Studio, Cardiff, April 11, and Workman’s Club, Dublin, April 13. Tour tickets are on sale from www.benjaminfrancisleftwich.com
The poster for Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s April 2024 tour
Did you know?
BENJAMIN Francis Leftwich’s songwriting, co-writing and collaborations with other artists have grown over the past few years, writing with The 1975, Nick Mulvey, CMAT (Irish singer-songwriter Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson), Holly Humberstone and Rachel Chinouriri.
Did you know too?
BENJAMIN was the first act to be signed by Dirty Hit Records, to be followed by The 1975, Wolf Alice, Beabadoobee, Pale Waves and Bleachers. Debut album Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm reached number 35 in the UK charts in July 2011.
Made for Chering: Cher’s Christmas selection box of disco bangers, festive standards and big ballads
Cher, Christmas (Warner Records) ***
Wrapping: As expected, Cher’s first ever Christmas album at 77 is beautifully packaged with a choice of sleeve, either Rock Chick Cher, dressed in faded denim, or glamourous metallic haute couture. Choose from CD, red vinyl, or a fabulous 20-page magazine version packed full of the icon that is Cher.
Gifts inside: Lead single DJ Play A Christmas Song is yet another sub-remake of Believe, but with a memorably hypnotic hook. The remaining dozen tracks are workmanlike covers of Christmas rock standards, originals Angels In The Snow, I Like Christmas and Tyga duet Drop Top Sleigh Ride, and a few too many seasonal ballads. Stevie Wonder (What Christmas Means To Me), Darlene Love (Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) , Cyndi Lauper, Michael Bublé and a host of others join in the colour-by-numbers set.
Style: Cher’s career across seven decades has relied in three hues: old-fashioned rock’n’roll, disco and big ballads. The former two have served her well for more than half a century. However, to my ears, Cher’s voice is too big, and even clumsy, for sensitive ballads, of which there are many.
‘Tis the reason to be jolly: The artwork is gorgeous. No-one knew they needed a Christmas Cher album (as her 27th studio set) until one came along. However, under the tantalising wrapping is a Christmas album to be played once, then kept on display with the other Christmas baubles.
Scrooge moan: The thought of Canadian crooner Michael Bublé and Cher sharing a song is compelling. However, the resulting cover of Home is a Yuletide disaster. The two voices simply don’t blend. Fortunately, Cyndi Lauper’s chipper and upbeat contribution to Put a Little Holiday in Your Heart more than makes up for this faux pas.
White Christmas? Not a sign of Bing Crosby’s hit. However, we are treated to pub-rock versions of Run Rudolph Run, Please Come Home For Christmas and a rather inappropriate rendition of Santa Baby!
Blue Christmas? Well, the artwork is beautiful and the lead single is a grower. However, many would have much preferred that promised Volume II of Cher’s Dancing Queen set of ABBA covers, five years on from the first.
Stocking or shocking: Despite the negatives, this is still a Cher album. Everyone knows someone who needs a little Cher in their lives.
Ian Sime
Kate Rusby: Christmas songs merry, melancholic and dippy
Kate Rusby, Light Years (Pure Records) ****
Wrapping: Barnsley nightingale Kate in dark angel wings, feet planted in her beloved snowy South Yorkshire landscape. A pictorial theme she extends through the inner sleeve and sleeve notes, culminating in the exiting Kate walking towards winter woodland.
Gifts inside: South Yorkshire pub carols (Spean; Nowell, Nowell); winter songs (A Spaceman Came Travelling; The Moon Shines Bright, with Kate’s “early 50th birthday present ” of Union Station’s Alison Krauss and Ron Block guesting on vocals and banjo); Christmas chestnuts “you hear in shops” (It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year; Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree/Sleigh Ride; three Rusby compositions, and a brace of novelty numbers (Sid Kipper’s parody Arrest These Merry Gentlemen and Sid Tepper & Roiy C Bennett’s Nothin’ For Christmas).
Style: Kate and her regular folk and Moog synth players, augmented as ever by the “Brass Boys”, on songs merry, melancholic and dippy.
’Tis the reason to be jolly: Kate’s own compositions, led by Glorious, a song of renewal, healing, love and light, composed one February day as she stood in her snow-coated garden, longing for spring, and thought of a broken angel seated in a tree. Her seventh take on While Shepherds Watched still leaves 24 pub carol versions to go because this one has a new Rusby tune and gorgeous chorus, as does the closing Joseph, complete with Damien O’Keefe’s glockenspiel.
Scrooge moan: It took Johnny Mathis from 1958 to 2023 to chalk up seven Christmas albums, by comparison with only 15 years for Kate’s holiday season septet (including the live Happy Holly Days). What took you so long, Johnny?!
White Christmas? Only on the sleeve.
Blue Christmas? Nowell, Nowell evokes the blue-fingered bleak midwinter of coats, scarves, holly berries and distant carol singers but the bright glory of the Nativity too. Kate’s cover ofChris de Burgh’s A Spaceman Came Travelling (whose lyrics lends Light Years its title) is bluer than the original too.
Stocking or shocking? Bought nothin’ for Christmas yet?Hollylujah, here comes the perfect gift for Yorkshire folk.
Eliza Carthy & Jon Boden, Glad Christmas Comes (Hudson Records) ****
Wrapping: Folk luminaries and fellow fiddle players Jon Boden (Bellowhead/Spiers & Boden) and Robin Hood’s Bay’s Eliza Carthy MBE (Waterson:Carthy/Wayward Band/The Imagined Village/Blue Murder/The Rails) in tree and candle-lit party mood with folk friends and a nodding mechanical reindeer. Later joined by a goose.
Gifts inside: Christmas in the Carthy & Boden households is a “serious business”, say E&J’s sleeve notes, and so is their debut Christmas collaboration. As heard at their December 10 Wassail (it means “be well”) at Whitby Pavilion, E&J combine evergreen carols with Norma Waterson recommendations (Stanley Brothers’ Beautiful Star and Jean Ritchie’s Winter Grace); a 2012 Boden composition, The Good Doctor; a 2021 Carthy & Boden original (Glad Christmas Comes, words by John Clare); the obligatory variation on While Shepherds (White Zion, from Boden’s local pub in Dungworth, along with The Holly & The Ivy) and a brace of 20th century interlopers, John Rox’s I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas and Shane MacGowan RIP and Jem Finer’s Fairytale Of New York. Make sure to read the sleeve notes too, painting the fullest picture behind the 16 tracks.
Style: Recorded at Yellow Arch Studios, Sheffield, the folk firmament is in full glory, from everything but the kitchen sink a la Bellowhead to haunting a cappella (Glad Christmas Comes, Remember Oh Thou Man). E&J’s fiery or mournful fiddles, E’s melodeons and percussion and J’s concertina, guitar and percussion are complemented by Backstage Brass, as warming as whisky yet as melancholic as toast gone cold, and the entwining voices of Waterson;Carthy cohorts Emily Portman and Tim van Eyken.
‘Tis The Reason To Be Jolly: Making merry with I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In; cavorting through Jingle Bells with fiddle, concertina and, yes, bells. Then, held back to the finale, having the baubles to smelt Fairytale Of New York in the Sheffield folk furnace, E & J jousting like Kirsty and Shane, changing “that line” (the one that rhymes with “you maggot”) to “You’re wasted, you’re plastered, You cheap lying bastard”, by the way. Who can resist bursting into dancing, like those mourners at Shane’s County Tipperary funeral? Certainly not the Morris-dancing Ewan Wardrop.
Scrooge moan: Such a shame to have missed that night of Whitby wassailing with E&J…but the official carol singing season chez Carthy and chez Boden stretches from September 1 to February 1, outlasting even the winter season’s South Yorkshire pub weekend “sings”, so Glad Christmas Comes can keep a’coming.
White Christmas? No, but ‘Christmas’ bedecks two titles, Glad Christmas Comes (and its album-closing brass reprise) and J’s jocular concertina cabaret of I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas, boozy brass coda et al.
Blue Christmas? None bluer than Rossetti/Holst’s In The Bleak Midwinter, frosty winds made moan by E’s singing, snow on snow on snow in the brass playing, stamped Could Only Be Made In Yorkshire.
Stocking or shocking? For shepherds and wise men, carol singers and folk club devotees alike.
When A Child Is Re-born: Johnny Mathis records new version of his 1976 Christmas chart-topper
Johnny Mathis, Christmas Time Is Here (Sony Legacy) ****
Wrapping: The Grandfather of the Christmas melody, Johnny Matthis is still looking good at 88. The Seventies-style sleeve holds a choice of a marbled red or ivy green vinyl LP or a modest standard CD version. Opt for the red version if you can find it.
Gifts inside: You will know all ten classic songs, such as Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, O Little Town Of Bethlehem and a remake of Johnny’s 1976 number one single When A Child Is Born.
Style: Like a good vintage wine, Johnny Mathis improves with time. This was the very last album to be recorded at the iconic Capital Tower Recording Studio in Hollywood before major restorations. Production helmed by Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler and indeed Johnny’s long-term collaborators Jay Landers and Fred Mollin, this is a festive slice of old-school easy listening.
‘Tis the reason to be jolly: This is Mr Mathis’s seventh Yuletide album (1958, 1963, 1969, 1986, 2002, 2013 and now 2023). Although visiting Christmas Past, this is a lovely selection of classics adored by many generations. Wicked/Broadway legend Kristin Chenoweth also guests on Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.
Scrooge moan: You may have to search a few websites to find the lovely red vinyl version.
White Christmas? Of course, White Christmas is present and correct. As are Merry Christmas, Baby and the album-closing Auld Lang Syne.
Blue Christmas? Yes, that song is here too, typical of a tasteful album, classic in style and tone, befitting a merry gentleman of senior vintage.
Stocking or shocking: Johnny Mathis is an essential festive favourite and every home should have at least one Christmas album by this Texan old-timer.
Ian Sime
Gregory Porter: Comfort and joy personified on Christmas Wish
Wrapping: Classic Christmas at home portraits of Porter, in his familiar hat rather than Santa’s, by the fireside on the cover, joined inside by his family and a photograph of his mother, and giving a child a present on the back. “I’m thankful for the healing that Christmas can bring,” he writes in his festive message. No lyrics, but credits for each song. CD colour? Christmas red, of course.
Gifts inside: Raised in Bakersfield, California, where his mother Ruth was a minister, Porter was encouraged to sing in church from an early age. That can be heard in his gospel voice (and the organ on the title track about his wish to kiss his dear mother mother’s Christmas Day). Christmas Wish is one of three Porter originals, joined by Everything’s Not Lost and the closing Heart For Christmas (with its refrain of “If children is for Christmas”) to accompany the likes of Little Drummer Boy and Cradle In Bethlehem.
Style: Trademark Blue Note/Verve Fifties’ holiday album elegance and sleek sophistication, as smooth as Nat King Cole, as warm as Louis Armstrong, recorded at Sear Sound, New York City over a week in late March/early April, gold-dusted with producer Troy Miller’s velvety string arrangements for the Kingdom Orchestra at London’s Abbey Road Studios. You want soul, jazz, gospel, vintage yet resonant today, Porter delivers, from the heavenly peace of a magical, piano and strings-decorated Silent Night to a gorgeous Do You Hear What I Hear?
‘Tis the reason to be jolly: Frank Loesser’s What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?, swept off its feet with romantic yearning in a duet with the aptly named Samara Joy.
Scrooge moan: Just a little too polished, too cosy, where you might wish for Otis Redding or James Brown to burst the Bublé of immaculate perfection.
White Christmas? No, but Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne’s ChristmasWaltz, SomedayAt Christmas, Christmas Wish, Christmas Time Is Here and Heart For Christmas tick the Christmas box.
Blue Christmas? No, but Purple Snowflakes (whatever purple snowflakes are?!). Clarence Paul/David Hamilton song, sung previously by Marvin Gaye on his 1965 album Pretty Little Baby, should you be wondering.
Stocking or shocking: No shocks here. Gregory Porter will be the go-to Christmas chestnut for 2023 stockings, parties and late-night liaisons alike, in the manner of Michael Bublé before him. Comfort and joy, Porter style.
IT was a good idea to schedule two Baroque Magnificats side by side in a single Christmas programme. What was arguably less sensible was to sing them in reverse chronological order.
The large choir was joined by the chamber choir The 24, bringing its numbers up to 250, all guest-conducted by Sarah Latto.
The history of Bach’s Magnificat is not altogether simple. This Christmas marks the 300th anniversary of the premiere of his first Magnificat, which was in E flat major. Over the following three years, he revised it, cutting out its four Christmas texts so that it could be used throughout the year and transposing it into the key of D major.
That is the version normally heard. What was given here was indeed “inspired by the early version” but in the later key. So we heard it with the Christmas bonuses.
It spearheaded the evening. In the opening chorus, the Baroque Ensemble, numbering some two dozen, was immediately right on its toes. The choir took longer to find focus. In the first interpolation, ‘Vom Himmel Hoch’ (From Heaven Above), the chorale melody in the sopranos needed greater prominence.
But there was a crisp attack into ‘Omnes generationes’ and thereafter the choir was fully focused: the ending of ‘Fecit Potentiam’ was superbly triumphal and the final Gloria equally imposing.
It was entirely understandable that soloists from within the choir (all members of The 24) were used, exactly as Bach would have done. But in this dry acoustic, which is so unreceptive to solo voices, it worked only intermittently.
Only one, the soprano Molly O’Toole, had the consistent resonance to surmount this difficulty; the baritone Will Parsons ran her a close second. Both, incidentally, sang their arias by heart. All of the others, equally youthful, were never less than competent, but lacked the projection required.
The orchestra contributed strong rhythmic backing, with first-class solo work from flutes and oboes. The portative organ, however, was underpowered against these forces and the harpsichord virtually inaudible.
The ‘other’ Magnificat was by the little-known Milanese nun Chiara Margarita Cozzolani. Written in the year of Bach’s birth, 1650, it inevitably suffered by being heard in the wake of his work rather than beforehand. But it proved an engaging work, for double choir, full of imaginative metrical changes closely linked to the text, even if its harmonic palette was limited. The 24 relished its antiphonal effects.
A Sinfonia pastorale – defined as for the Christmas season by its closing movement – was led from the violin with considerable panache by Asuka Sumi, one of the Baroque Ensemble’s co-directors (the other is cellist Rachel Gray, also present here).
Thereafter we enjoyed three Michael Praetorius settings of Christmas carols, with orchestral accompaniment. Finally, Gruber’s Silent Night, to an American translation, invited audience participation.
It made for a second half that was rather less exciting than Bach’s Magnificat had been. Nevertheless, Latto had conducted decisively, mouthing all the words as choral conductors are wont to do, but achieving excellent results and infusing the choir with enthusiasm.
Putting the East into Festive Feast: Finn East with Carly Morton, left, and York Stage newcomer Jess Parnell. All pictures: Kevin Coundon
YORK Stage director Nik Briggs likes to try out different shows for the Christmas season.
Whether staging the company’s one-off pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, in the Covid winter of a socially distanced 2020 at Theatre@41, or his sparkling, exuberant Elf The Musical at the Grand Opera House in 2021, he has come up trumps.
This winter, he is presenting not one, but two shows, back at Theatre@41. By day, Mick Liversidge’s Mr Claus and Joanne Theaker’s Mrs Claus are to be found in their very busy house, preparing for the big day but still finding time to entertain children with 45 minutes of sing-a-longs, Christmas stories, interactive wonderment and Christmas songs aplenty each day until Saturday in Santa’s Sing-A-Long.
By night, diverse York Stage vocal talent is serving up a Festive Feast of Christmas songs, ranging from the traditional chestnuts to modern pop, washed down with lashings of musical theatre favourites, under the musical direction of Adam Tomlinson.
Always on hand with quips or quiz questions at the keyboard, he is accompanied by Rosie Morris on bass and Alex Woolgar on drums to one side of the raised end-on stage in an auditorium bedecked with festive lighting, a red bow and grey backdrop, decorations, ceiling baubles, a wood burner, Christmas stockings, tinsel tassels and assorted Christmas trees. Merry Christmas reads the lettering above the mantlepiece.
Jess Main, left, Hannah Shaw and Katie Melia up front in an ensemble number in York Stage’s Festive Feast
To the other side are gathered 11 singers, who will be a constant presence, either seated on chairs or stools and gazing stage-wards supportively, when not singing, or leaping up to take centre stage in solos, duets, trios or quintets or to share in an ensemble number.
In glittering party frocks, York Stage regulars Katie Melia, Jess Main, Tracey Rea, Cyanne Unamba Oparah, Hannah Shaw and Carly Morton are joined for the first time by Guildhall School of Music & Drama student Jess Parnell.
Alongside the bow-tied, dinner-jacketed Matthew Clarke, Stuart Hutchinson and Jack Hooper is Finn East, all in black at Friday’s performance, adding a Jack Black in School Of Rock vibe to the festive formality around him. Welcome back Finn. So pleased to see you restored to the York Stage ranks; we have missed you, big fella.
The first half opens with That Time Of Year (Olaf’s Frozen Adventure), a chance for all the company to loosen their vocal chords, before Matthew Clarke confirms It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas and Finn East reaches for his guitar in Chris Rea’s winter warmer Driving Home For Christmas.
The Festive Feast company, bar Stuart Hutchinson: Hannah Shaw, left, Carly Morton and Matthew Clarke; middle, Jess Main, left, Jack Hooper and Jess Parnell; back, Cyanne Unamba Oparah, Tracy Rea, Katie Melia and Finn East
Musical theatre is represented in the spot-on choice of Turkey Lurkey Time from Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s Promises, Promises, and those promises are certainly delivered by Carly Morton, Katie Melia and Jess Parnell.
Oh, what fun it is for Hutchinson, Clarke, Jess Main, Cyanne Unamba Oparah and Tracey Rea to sing James Lord Pierpont’s Jingle Bells, surely the jolliest ride to Christmas of all the seasonal favourites.
Rea’s rendition of Christmas Song, full of diva drama, leads off a run of solo numbers. Unamba Oparah, in red, turns up the heat in the cheeky Santa Baby, then Hannah Shaw impressively rides the Weimar cabaret-style twists & turns and mood changes of a woman scorned in Surabaya Santa, from Jason Robert Brown’s 1997 musical Songs For A New World: another inspired pick for a set list with room to surprise and seek out less familiar pearls. Whereupon Jess Parnell announces a new talent to watch with Christmas Lullaby, pure and midnight clear.
Songs from Christmas films are heralded by, what else, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas from 1942’s Holiday Inn, in a dreamy duet for a crooning Clarke and Melia. Bags of personality filter through the combative You’re A Mean One Mr Grinch, Jack Hooper and East jousting ever more grouchily with each retort from behind magic light books in the show’s comedic high point.
Hip hippo hooray: Breathless excitement from Katie Melia in I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas
A Christmas at the Movies Medley, arranged delightfully by Tomlinson, sees out the first half in the merriest Christmas spirit.
Bohemian Rhapsody might not be an obvious choice for a Festive Feast, but Queen’s rock-operatic behemoth twice topped the Christmas chart, in 1975 and 1991, a month after Freddie Mercury’s death. What an second-half opener it proves in an ensemble number that showcases the company’s singing chops, nods to the iconic video’s torch-lit operatic Galileo section, then rocks out gloriously.
Another Christmas number one, 1983’s Only You, is transformed from the Flying Pickets’ a cappella sextet to Only Stu, Hutchinson flying solo with all the bleak midwinter yearning of Vince Clarke’s paean to lost love.
Melia seeks out a reviving cocktail mid-song in the breathless rush of the daffy I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas and Shaw’s Holly Jolly Christmas sure is perky and bright. Parnell excels again in the Basque folk carol Gabriel’s Message, to Tomlinson’s minimalist accompaniment, as the mood turns more reflective, and magical too, in the ensemble performance of another folk carol, Gaudete, as popularised in Steeleye Span’s 1973 a cappella hit. Stepping out from behind the keys, Tomlinson extracts spine-tingling choral interplay from his singers.
Carly Morton: Outstanding renditions of River and All I Want For Christmas Is You
Joni Mitchell’s River, from 1971’s Blue album, was never released as a single but has become her second-most covered song. Here, company leading lady Carly Morton’s gorgeous version re-emphasises why, capturing the heartbroken Mitchell’s wish for a river she could skate away on.
Christmas can be a season of tears as much as good cheer, as represented in Festive Feast’s programme, but it feels right that the home straight should accentuate the joys, from Hooper’s It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year to Unamba Oparah and Shaw’s all-female reinvigoration of Baby It’s Cold Outside, a song that some considered to be coercive in its original man-cajoling-woman call-and-respond format.
Jess Main’s A Place Called Home is as warming as that wood burner looks on stage, and now is the time for what Tomlinson calls “a bit of a Christmas banger”. “I’ll try” says Morton, as she starts to climb the vertiginous vocal slopes of Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You…and duly hits the peaks, joined in joyful celebration by her fellow singers.
No better way to finish than with We Wish You A Merry Christmas, served a cappella, as York Stage revels in parading vocal prowess beyond the realms of musical theatre.
York Stage in Festive Feast, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York. Further performances, Tuesday to Friday, 8pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk (for Santa’s Sing-A-Long too).
Marian Consort: Jacobean Christmas packed with familiar goodies. Picture: Ben Tomlin
IT was good to get back to a dyed-in-the-wool, truly early, seasonal celebration. The six Marian voices, with Nicholas Morris in attendance on the portative organ, delivered A Jacobean Christmas, packed with familiar goodies at the National Centre for Early Music.
Rory McCleery, the group’s countertenor, founder and director, emceed with admirable narrative, clear and concise.
Verse anthems predominated, which gave all the singers a chance to shine individually. Byrd, still rightly the subject of year-long commemorations, took pride of place. His “Carroll for Christmas Day”, This Day Christ Was Born, with its opening three-against-three syncopations, was stunning.
No less moving, although for completely different reasons, was his five-part Lulla, Lullaby, remembering the Massacre of the Innocents amid all the festivities, a crunchy ‘false relation’ at the close crystallising its bitter-sweetness.
Less often heard, but equally effective, was Byrd’s An Earthly Tree, with mezzo (Sarah Anne Champion) and countertenor (McCreery) duetting engagingly. Its closing chorus, “Cast off all doubtful care”, in a new, quicker meter, was the perfect antidote.
A trio of numbers by Orlando Gibbons included his extended verse anthem See, See, The Word Is Incarnate – almost a biography of Christ – which was given a good deal of dramatic colour. It was also an inspired idea to include one of his 17 hymns, Angels’ Song, with its original words (nowadays sung to Forth In Thy Name O Lord I Go).
Lead soprano Caroline Halls produced ideally pure, boyish tone for the anonymous Sweet Was The Song, and her co-soprano Alexandra Kidgell was equally fluent in the verses of Martin Peerson’s Upon My Lap My Sovereign Sits, to words by the London-born, Antwerp-based Richard Verstegan.
There were further anthems from two Johns, Amner and Bull, the latter also heard in a catchy organ solo. The only non-Jacobean on the menu was Robert Parsons, but the Amen of his Ave Maria, perhaps the loveliest in all Tudor music, justified its inclusion. It dates from the 1560s and was tellingly sung from behind the audience.
Not all the anthems here need or deserved organ accompaniment, but the balance of voices, solidly underpinned by tenor William Wright and bass Jon Stainsby, ensured a satisfying evening.
British Music Society of York: Daniel Lebhardt, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, December 1
FEW pianists are able successfully to combine both accompaniment and solo work. But less than a week after he had appeared in a supporting role in Helmsley, Daniel Lebhardt was back in Yorkshire for this solo recital as part of the British Music Society of York’s 102nd season.
He opened with four ballades by Brahms, but thereafter interleaved Scriabin and Bartók with three Ligeti preludes. The ballades are a product of the composer’s early twenties and grouped in two pairs, the minor and major keys of D and B; they are mainly in three-part song form.
Lebhardt played them lovingly, concentrating on their melodies and keeping accompanimental figures in the background. Nowhere was this more successful than in the last, which was beautifully sustained.
We were to hear little of this approach in the rest of the programme. Ligeti’s 18 preludes are nowadays becoming de rigueur in piano recitals (two days earlier Danny Driver had included some here).
They are frequently volatile, often fast-moving, and a supreme test of virtuosity. Lebhardt was unlucky with No 6, Autumn In Warsaw, where he had a memory lapse that a re-start could not surmount, although we had sensed the falling leaves well enough. The prestissimo ending of No 15, White On White, given later, was thrilling.
The audience stayed on his side and he came back even more determined. So much so that he took out his anger on the ‘Drammatico’ opening of Scriabin’s Third Sonata, with exceptionally strong accents.
But he still managed to convey its ebb and flow. He had regained composure by the third, slow movement, which was gentle, bordering on sentimental. Fire was to return with a vengeance in the finale; it was to become a chorale by the end. He also made strong contrasts between high and low registers in Scriabin’s Vers la Flamme.
Born in Hungary, but now based in this country, Lebhardt showed a particular empathy with Bartók. The three Studies were wonderfully crisp; they must have acted as stimulants for Ligeti. The first was a whirlwind of close harmony, while in the second he brought out the theme with great clarity in the left hand. There was not much evidence of the ‘Rubato’ the composer marked in the third, but it was neatly structured nonetheless.
Bartók’s ‘Out Of Doors’ suite (Szabadban) had a special ring of truth. Lebhardt found the humour in ‘Musettes’ (although it needed to be a touch lighter), and ‘The Night’s Music’ was appropriately eerie.
‘The chase’ was highly percussive and riddled with cross-accents, in true Allegro Barbaro vein. Indeed, if there were a quibble about the second half, it would be that too much of the music was percussive, allowing the pianist’s lyricism little rein. But his virtuosity – with the one exception – was never in doubt.
Bolshee trio Lizzy Whynes, left, Megan Bailey and Pauline Clark
BOOKING is open for Bolshee Young Creatives, a new youth arts project from Bolshee CIC, set up in collaboration with Young Thugs Studio in York.
The project will start in January 2024 at South Bank Social Club, Ovington Terrace, where sessions will run regularly on term-time Wednesday evenings. Initially, sessions are for anyone aged eight to 14 who is creative and “wants to find their voice, whether young musicians, dancers, drawers, DJs, technicians, writers, talkers and explorers”. No experience is necessary.
Bolshee CIC (Community Interest Company) is a female-led creative projects company, run by three artists and friends, creative director Pauline Clark, associate director Lizzy Whynes and creative producer Megan Bailey, who produce projects in York designed to help everyone feel heard, empowered and supported, regardless of their background.
Latest project Bolshee Young Creatives will be mounted in conjunction with fellow Community Interest Company Young Thugs, whose state-of-the-art recording studio in York places community at its heart.
The new joint initiative is targeted at curious and adventurous young people who want to be creative in all sorts of ways and make things happen in York. The Young Creatives will work with industry professionals to plan and put on dynamic and multidisciplinary performances and events.
Young Thugs director Rich Corrigan says: ”We’re incredibly excited about collaborating with the inspirational and talented Bolshee women. There’s a lot of synergy between our organisations, especially around our aspirations for creating inclusive and accessible programmes and events that challenge the status quo and help celebrate the diverse arts community in York.”
Bolshee creative director Paula Clark says: “We want to celebrate all forms of creativity, from drama to design, sound and music to movement and event management. We’re calling for expressions of interest from young musicians, dancers, drawers, DJs, technicians, writers, talkers and explorers.
“We’re thrilled to be collaborating with our friends at Young Thugs, who will be able to bring a whole other level of industry knowledge and experience to the project. Young Thugs have the same commitment to serving the community as creatively and dynamically as Bolshee does. Let’s make some noise!”
Spaces for Bolshee Young Creatives are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. To find out more and book a place, follow this link: https://www.bolshee.com/young-creatives
The York Waits: In Dulci Jubilo at the double in Beverley and York this weekend
CHRISTMAS, Christmas and more Christmas events stop Charles Hutchinson from staying by a winter fire as writing cards must wait.
Christmas collaboration of the week: The York Waits & Ebor Singers, In Dulci Jubilo, St Mary’s Church, Beverley, today, 12 noon; St Olave’s Church, Marygate, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
SEASONAL music from Renaissance Europe for choir and period instruments, celebrating the Christmas story in the grand works of Michael Praetoius, Schutz, Eccard, Lassus and William Byrd.
Twenty voices of the Ebor Singers combine with the sackbuts, curtals, recorders, flutes and violin of The York Waits. Additional religious and secular instrumental items will afeature the Waits’ Noyse of Shawms, crumhorns, bagpipes and hurdy gurdy. Box office: ncem.ticketsolve.com.
100 snowmen – count them! – created by Slingsby Primary School pupils for the Oak Bedroom at Nunnington Hall
Last chance to see: Christmas Through The Ages, Nunnington Hall, near Helmsley, today and tomorrow, 10.30am to 4pm; last entry at 3.15pm
NUNNINGTON Hall plays host to Christmases past on a Yuletide journey through the ages, immersed in the rich tapestry of festive traditions. Step into the opulence of the Georgian era, savour the splendour of the Victorian golden age, see a Tudor feast fit for a king, or relive the exuberant 1980s’ parties. Tomorrow, carol-singing sessions start at 12 noon and 2pm.
Younger visitors can discover a riddle trail in the garden and a new 1940s’ display in the West Bedroom details the story of a rationed Christmas. Slingsby Primary School has created a winter wonderland of 100 snowmen in the Oak Bedroom. Normal admission applies. Tickets: nationaltrust.org.uk/nunnington-hall.
Richard Kay: Perfoming at Showtime With Don Pears At Christmas
Pears, but no partridge, for Christmas: Showtime With Don Pears At Christmas, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tomorrow , 7pm
NOW a JoRo Christmas tradition, legendary York musician Don Pears performs an evening full of cheer in his Christmas Showtime Concert. Celebrating 30 years of making music and fundraising for the Haxby Road theatre, Pears will be joined by regular cohorts Arnold Durham, Graham and Richard Kay, John Hall, Steve Cassidy, Carol Richardson and Beth Winteringham.
York choir Singphonia make a guest appearance, along with The Tuesday Singers and York Ladies. Sweet Caroline, Memory and You Raise Me Up join multiple festive favourites on the set list. Meanwhile, Shepherd Group Brass Band’s 7.30pm concerts on December 22 and 23 have sold out. Box office: 01904 501395 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Two shows in one day for Steve Cassidy: Performing at both York’s Annual Christmas Carol Concert at York Barbican and Showtime With Don Pears At Christmas at Joseph Rowntree Theatre tomorrow
Long-running festive fixture: York’s Annual Community Carol Concert, York Barbican, tomorrow (17/12/2023), 2pm
FOR 65 years, this concert has heralded York’s festive season with favourite Christmas carols and songs. Join Shepherd Group Youth Band, Badger Hill School Choir, Track 29 Ladies Harmony Chorus, York Stage School and Steve Cassidy for a Christmas singalong under the baton of musical director Mike Pratt.
Community Carol Concert favourites Adam Tomlinson and Rev Andrew Foster return as hosts. Proceeds go to the Lord Mayor and Sheriff of York’s Christmas Cheer Fund and The Press’s nominated charity. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk
The Howl & The Hum: Last hurrah for the York band’s original line-up in three-night Christmas run at The Crescent
Ho-ho homecoming for Christmas of the week: The Howl & The Hum, supported by Fiona Lee, tomorrow, Before Breakfast, Monday, and Bar Pandora, Tuesday, The Crescent, York.Doors: 7.30pm. Stage times: support acts, 8.15pm; headliners, 9.15pm
YORK’S supreme swoony rockers return to The Crescent for three festive shows with the original line-up of Sam Griffiths, vocals and guitar, Bradley Blackwell, bass, Conor Hirons, guitar, and Jack Williams, drums, who play together for the last time.
“The Howl & The Hum are a band who we grew up with; their shows here at The Crescent have always been special since our – and their – early days through to the way-pro Christmas gigs they’ve played here more recently,” says the website. “Cheers guys, look forward to what is next!”. Sold out, alas. For returns only: thecrescent.co.uk.
Green Matthews: Returning to the NCEM for A Christmas Carol In Concert on Tuesday night
Dickens of a good idea for a Christmas folk concert: Green Matthews: A Christmas Carol In Concert, National Centre for Early Music, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
CHRIS Green and Sophie Matthews are joined by Jude Rees for a retelling of Charles Dickens’s redemptive Christmas tale exclusively through song with voices and traditional and modern instruments in authentic musical arrangements.
Modern-day balladeers Green Matthews take this nocturnal festive adventure back to its Victorian fireside roots with a magical blend of new lyrics, midwinter English folk tunes and carol melodies to illustrate the transformation of flint-hearted Ebenezer Scrooge into the epitome of the Christmas spirit: warm hearted, generous and loving. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
The Carpenters Story At Christmas at York Barbican
Tribute show of the week: The Carpenters Story At Christmas, York Barbican, Tuesday, 7.30pm
IN this special festive show, Carpenters’ classics such as Top Of The World, Close To You and We’ve Only Just Begun are paired with festive selections from Richard and Karen Carpenter’s 1978 album Christmas Portrait, from Merry Christmas Darling to The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire). Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Jools Holland: Back at York Barbican for his traditional winter appearance on Wednesday
Recommended but sold out already: Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm
BOOGIE-WOOGIE piano maestro Jools Holland and his big band will be joined by special guests Pauline Black and Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrick, from The Selecter. “This magnificent addition will amplify our Ska music credentials and bring an extra razzy dazzy spasm to our dance capabilities,” reckons Jools.
Boogie queen and enchantress Ruby Turner and Louise Marshall will be singing too, as will Sumudu Jayatilaka, who joined Jools for the first time in 2022.
Stephen Millership’s cover illustration for Rick Broadbent’s Now Then: A Biography Of Yorkshire
GRAHAM Chalmers unexpectedly introduces a new fashion slot, where he reviews the surprising return of a plethora of fashion styles enjoying a comeback.
Charles Hutchinson explores the Yorkshire phrase “Now Then” with a look at Rick Broadbent’s new book Now Then: A Biography Of Yorkshire and Richard Hawley’s new compilation album Now Then and follows up with questions for Graham on The Beatles’ remarkable resurrection single Now And Then.
Finally, Graham recounts what happened when he spent a night in Sunderland at the heart of the city’s indie scene, watching Field Music’s Peter Brewis in concert.
Bootleg Beatles: Get back to York Barbican tomorrow night
LET’S start at the end: the “final” Beatles song, Now And Then, the Fab Four’s 18th chart topper and first in 54 years since 1969’s The Ballad Of John And Yoko.
Yes, the fastest-selling vinyl single of the 21st century will be incorporated into the Bootleg Beatles’ perfectly timed return to York Barbican tomorrow night (13/12/2023).
“It will feature towards the end of the show, in the section when we’re covering the final years of The Beatles,” says Steve White, who is entering his 12th year as the tribute band’s Paul McCartney.
“We hope people are moved by it, the way we present it with the lighting. I’ve seen a video of our performance and it’s really quite haunting.”
First watching the documentary that accompanied the reawakened ghost of John Lennon’s ballad, with its combination of Lennon’s original late-1970s’ demo, 1994 guitar lines by George Harrison and new parts by McCartney and Ringo Starr, Steve felt the hair on the back of his neck standing up on encountering Lennon’s vocal, separated through the magic of AI.
“It’s a melancholy song, appropriate for the end of The Beatles, and then having to learn it, I could have broken down in tears when we played it for the first time at The Crown in Melbourne on our Australian tour,” he says. “The moment we started the first chord, the crowd just stood up. It was an amazing feeling.”
The song’s title could not be more apt: the now and the then of The Beatles. “We have lost two already, and there are two to go, so to speak. We’re never gonna see anything like them again. Never ever going to see the real thing again,” says Steve.
“With every year that ticks by, we appreciate more than ever that Paul and Ringo are part of the UK’s fixtures and fittings. I’m dreading when they go. Paul is my absolute hero.
“I don’t know him and yet I feel like I know him, and it will feel like losing a member of the family when the day comes. I just hope that I get the chance to say hello, shake his hand and thank him for all the music he has brought us, telling him ‘you are the most amazing musician there’s ever been’. That’s all I’d want to say. He means so much to me.”
Nottinghamshire musician Steve had first been a member of The Beatles Experience with three friends. “We didn’t set out to be a Beatles band but a Sixties’ covers band, but we were all huge fans of The Beatles and kind of based ourselves on them,” he recalls.
“We used to do a few Beatles songs in the set, and someone asked if we could play just Beatles songs at their 60th birthday party, then a wedding anniversary, and it began to overshadow our Sixties’ tribute show.”
At the time, Steve was the band’s rhythm guitarist, “effectively John Lennon”, he says. “But people kept saying you have to be Paul, because you look more like him – I’m blessed with the eyebrows! – so me and the bass player switched over.
“That meant I had to learn to play [guitar] left-handed, being a right hander. To get to a very crude level of playing took me three months, playing six to eight hours a day, then gradually getting more professional to fill in the blanks.”
Steve went on to audition for the Bootleg Beatles, first sending in a video, then auditioning in person, the process whittling down the applicants to “serious contenders to play with the rest of the band to see how we gelled”.
White, who had seen the Bootleg Beatles many times, was the right fit and continues to travel the long and winding road through the Fab Four Sixties after more than a decade of Bootleg service.
For the past six years, he has been accompanied on the nostalgia trip by Tyson Kelly’s John, Steve Hill’s George and Gordon Elsmore’s Ringo as they re-create the sound and look of each Beatles’ phase in fastidious detail.
“We always go through the Beatles’ career from start to finish, picking out the key points, and so many are iconic, but you can switch the material, like the choice of psychedelic songs,” says Steve. “This show is markedly different: different costumes, guitars, material – and Now And Then of course.
“As usual, we’ll be travelling with our resident orchestra too, four brass and four string players, and another guy, who plays keys.”
The Beatles are back with Now And Then and expanded reissues of their Red and Blue compilations, just as old rivals The Rolling Stones resurface with Hackney Diamonds, their first album of original material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang.
Steve will always be in the Beatles camp. “The Rolling Stones, no discredit to the Stones, as they’re an incredible, iconic band, but they do have a ‘sound’, more of a blues edge. Early on The Beatles were more popified, the ‘unclean’ Stones were more edgy, still are, but The Beatles went on to be so diverse in such a short time together, spanning pretty much everything,” he says.
“How could you ever pigeonhole The Beatles? You couldn’t. It’s impossible.”
Bootleg Beatles, York Barbican, December 13, 7.30pm. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
