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Eboracum Baroque gather remotely for Heroic fundraising night of Handel music

The 25 Eboracum Baroque musicians and singers who will perform the Heroic Handel virtual concert

EBORACUM Baroque will present Heroic Handel in a fundraising virtual concert for the York ensemble on July 18.

This 7pm programme of Handel’s music has been recorded and filmed in isolation during lockdown to be premiered on youtube.com/eboracumbaroque and facebook.com/eboracum.baroque.

The concert will feature virtuosic Handel operatic arias from Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare, characterful instrumental music and the concluding magnificent Coronation anthem, Zadok The Priest.

“This is a chance to hear talented young musicians performing Handel’s dazzling music for singers and a full period instrument orchestra,” says founder, director and trumpet player Chris Parsons, a University of York graduate. 

Twenty-five Eboracum Baroque musicians have each recorded their individual parts separately from across Britain and Europe before being assembled remotely for this unique performance.

“This is a chance to support young professional musicians in these uncertain times and secure the financial future of Eboracum Baroque, so that we can continue to offer high quality, engaging musical experiences including concerts, recordings and education workshops,” says Chris.

Across lockdown, the ensemble has given a series of virtual concerts featuring repertoire for solo instrumentalists and singers, as well as a Spotlight series focusing on different instruments from the ensemble.

“For Heroic Handel, we’re delighted to be joined by our good friends, York Gin, who will present a segment of the concert all about the gin craze of the 18th century – and some cocktail making too,” says Chris. “Dress up as if you were going to watch the concert live, grab a drink of your choosing and enjoy Handel’s glorious music from the comfort of your own home.”

Eboracum Baroque players perform Vivaldi at York Mansion House

Here Eboracum Baroque trumpet player and director Chris Parsons answers Charles Hutchinson’s questions on remote concerts in lockdown, climaxing with Heroic Handel.

How did the project start?

“Eboracum have been working on virtual projects all through lockdown with our themed virtual concerts and Spotlight concerts, which feature different instruments from the ensemble.

“These were either performed via Zoom live or pre-recorded. They all featured just solo repertoire – and sometimes the performers duetting with themselves with the help of technology.

“But we were really keen to do something a bit bigger and utilise all the great musicians in the ensemble, so our project Heroic Handel was born, featuring 25 musicians all coming together to perform lots of music from opera arias, chamber music and right through to Zadok The Priest for full orchestra and choir.

“The great thing is that it’s been such a fantastic collaborative project between all of the musicians, who have all been so positive and supportive. We’re really keen to keep music going and we’re hoping this will do that.”

Eboracum Baroque’s poster for the Heroic Handel concert

How do you put together a virtual concert recording?

“It’s quite different to a usual concert! The main thing is keeping everyone together, with everyone sending their recordings in separately from wherever they are – mostly all across the UK but some in Serbia and Spain!

“The main thing is a click track and a pair of headphones. I choose the tempo of the piece – Handel wouldn’t have known what a metronome was! – and that is then sent in the form of a click track and the players and singers have to stay exactly in time, so that it can be stuck together using software.

“It’s quite a strange process recording your part all by yourself and not bouncing off the other players/singers. We actually had the cello and harpsichord record their parts first and then people could have some instruments to play along to, along with the click track.

“Quite a new experience for many of us, but one we’ve embraced it if it means we can get to perform together.” 

What does the editing require?

“David Sims, another music graduate from the University of York, is the tech whizz who puts it all together. As he put it, his job is ‘sticking it all together and making sure that if people have recorded in their bathroom/garage/box room, he can make it sound like everyone is actually in the same place’!”

As director, how have you selected the programme for the themed concerts and what have been the themes so far?

“Again, quite a collaborative experience with all the musicians involved. As we were all performing completely solo, it was important to choose the right repertoire – and the right instruments.

“As a trumpeter, there’s not really much music that works completely by itself, so I didn’t have too much to play, but there’s lots of solo music for cello, violin, oboe and recorder that worked really well.

“We also had some folk songs sung by John Holland Avery, which worked really nicely unaccompanied.

“The themes have been everything from Baroque Dance music (including teaching the audience  how to dance a minuet in their own home); Bach’s Leipzig Coffee House concerts and an Italian theme again with audience participation, teaching an 18th century Venetian gondolier song!”

Eboracum Baroque musicians at Stamford Georgian Festival

How have the Spotlight concerts gone?

“They’ve been great to really show up close our baroque instruments. We’ve done ones for recorder, strings, oboe and trumpet. For the trumpet one, we used technology to combine myself and another trumpeter, so we could do some more repertoire.” 

What has been the reaction to the concerts in this union of the baroque and 21st century technology?

“Really positive. I think audiences are so keen to hear music and enjoy seeing the innovation so many ensembles have come up with during this strange time. We’ve found people really enjoy – particularly during March/April time – the Friday lunchtime concert time as something to look forward to in the week.

“It’s allowed us to explore repertoire we might not have done, which is a good thing, I think, to introduce audiences to new pieces as well.” 

Heroic Handel is the biggest concert yet. How much planning has it taken and how have you put the programme together?

“Yes, it’s been quite a process bringing everything together, but an exciting one! We began planning this at the start of May, so it’s been a great way to keep musicians busy.

“The main thing has been making sure we get all the tech side of things ready so that everyone knows how to do it. Again, it was quite a collaborative process.

“The great thing about Eboracum is that we’re a very flexible ensemble: one gig might be three musicians and another might be 20 musicians!

“So, I hope this concert will showcase everything Eboracum does. There are pieces in this concert with three players (the Recorder Sonata) and Zadok The Priest has all 25 players playing in it.”

What do you love most about Handel’s music?

“His music has everything! It can be so dramatic – all the grandeur with trumpets and timpani – but also so beautiful and expressive. He can just write a great tune and knows how to make it work for every situation.

“The opera arias you will hear in this concert are pieces that people in England would have heard nothing like till then and I’m sure they must have been blown away by it. He knew how to write for a big occasion too: Zadok The Priest just builds the tension before the glorious entry of the choir and the trumpets – a perfect piece for the coronation of a king.”

Eboracum Baroque chamber musicians at Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire

What’s coming next for Eboracum Baroque?

“This concert is really the culmination of our work in lockdown. We’ll then probably have a bit of breather for the rest of July and most of August as we work on what comes next for us.

“It’s such an uncertain time but we’re hoping we can begin to work together in the same place – probably in a church without an audience – where we can record concerts and then live-stream them.

“Particularly, we want to plan towards Christmas, which is really the time of year that will be decisive financially in how the ensemble proceeds into 2021.” 

What are you missing most in lockdown musically?

“Being together in the same room. Can’t wait till we can logistically get back to playing together. Eboracum members are more than just colleagues, we’re all good friends, so we’re missing the social side too.”

How will you feel when Eboracum Baroque can perform together again cheek by jowl?

“It’ll be an amazing feeling, I’m certain of it, probably quite an odd one too, playing with people in the same room again, but it’ll be fantastic, I’m sure of it!

“It will no doubt be a slightly different set-up for a while – including any required distancing – but I think it will really boost morale as well.”

How do you foresee the future for freelance musicians in these desperate times?

“It’s such an uncertain time. I’m ever the optimist that, in time, music will come storming back. The arts will be required even more than ever and having seen all the innovation during this lockdown period, I’m absolutely certain that this creativity will continue – creating new ways to watch concerts, new set-ups for audiences etc.

“For freelancers like myself and many of the Eboracum team, we just hope that venues are given the go-ahead to open and begin to programme concerts again in whatever form is possible.

“It will be a long, hard slog but I know musicians are never tiring and we’ll fight to bring this amazing industry back to happier times.”

Have you discovered anything to the good in lockdown? 

“During lockdown my wife and I had our first baby, a baby girl born at the start of April. So, we’ve been kept busy! A silver lining from it all is that I’ve been at home throughout and have been able to spend so much time with our new addition and to help my wife too, so that’s been great but we’re looking forward to slowly having more people around!

“Also, I’ve enjoyed a slightly slower pace of life – even with a new-born – and I think when things do eventually get back to normal, I’d like to try and keep a bit of that…”

Eboracum Baroque director Chris Parsons

THE July 18 concert comprises: Handel’s March from Rinaldo; O The Pleasure Of The Plains from Acis And Galatea; Sibilar Gli Annui d’Aletto from Rinaldo, featuring baritone John Holland Avery; Sonata in B minor, Opus 2 No 1: Andante and Allegro; V’adoro, Pupille from Giulio Cesare, featuring soprano Charlotte Bowden; Recorder Sonata in F major, and Zadok The Priest: Coronation Anthem for George II.

The Eboracum Baroque singers and musicians performing Heroic Handel are:

Sopranos: Lottie Bowden, Tamsin Raitt, Elen Lloyd Roberts, Naomi Sturgess

Altos: Laura Baldwin, Alex Osborne, Mark Williams

Tenors: Gareth Edmunds, Will Wright

Basses: John Holland Avery, Jamie Woollard

Violins: Katarina Djordevic, Kirsty Main 

Viola: Sam Kennedy 

Cello: Miri Nohl

Double bass: Frances Preston

Harpsichords: Seb Gillot and Marta Lopez

Oboes: Nicola Barbagli, Katie Lewis

Recorder:Miriam Monaghan

Trumpets: Brendan Musk, Chris Parsons

Timpani: Fabian Edwards

Bassoons: Catriona McDermid

Conductor: Chris Parsons

Audio and video editing: David Sims 

Eboracum Baroque performing Handel’s Messiah at Senate House, Cambridge

Who are Eboracum Baroque?

THIS group of professional singers and classical instrumentalists was formed in 2012 by Chris Parsons at the University of York and the Royal College of Music and has performed across the Britain and Europe, from Senate House, Cambridge, to The Temple Church, London, and Christuskirche, Hannover.

As well as their concert performances, Eboracum Baroque have given fully staged performances of Purcell’s Dido And Aeneas and Handel’s Acis And Galatea. 

Performing music from across the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the ensemble has a particular specialism in English music from the 17th and 18th Century.

In January 2015, Eboracum Baroque recorded their first album, funded by the National Trust and Arts Council England, comprising forgotten music by the English Baroque composer Thomas Tudway (1650-1726), recorded at Wimpole Hall, near Cambridge, where Tudway worked from 1714 to 1726.

The ensemble seeks to champion forgotten English composers from the period while still performing many famous works. Their second CD, Sounds Of Suffolk, released in November 2018, features forgotten music from 18th century Suffolk, such as violin sonatas by Joseph Gibbs and music from Ickworth House. 

Eboracum Baroque perform at National Trust properties, such as Wimpole Hall, Oxburgh Hall and Canons Ashby, presenting programmes unique to each property’s history.

In December 2015, the group undertook its first major tour abroad with performances of Handel’s Messiah in Münster and Hannover in Germany. A December 2017 tour of Estonia took in concerts of Bach’s Magnificat and Vivaldi’s Magnificat in Tartu and Tallinn, the second being broadcast on Estonian National Radio. 

Eboracum Ensemble run an education programme with schools across Britain, such as projects based around Handel’s Water Music and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

They continue to work with Horrible Histories author Terry Deary on projects where they hope to introduce the next generation of musicians to Baroque music. Performances with Terry have included a new narration of Purcell’s King Arthur and The Fairy Queen and The Glorious Georgians, a show at the Edinburgh Fringe.

They have devised The Story Orchestra: Four Seasons In One Day, an educational project designed around Vivaldi’s Four Seasons that has toured many schools, working with festivals and music hubs, such as the Edinburgh Book Festival and the National Centre for Early Music in York. 

Eboracum Baroque give concerts regularly in their home city of York at York Mansion House, as well as frequent performances in their “second home” in Cambridge, not least of Handel’s Messiah for the past seven years to a sold-out audience of 600 each time. 

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Richard Thompson to play 2021 Platform Festival after Covid de-railed July’s Old Station gig. Son Teddy heads for Pock too

Richard Thompson: Changing Platform date in Pocklington

POCKLINGTON Arts Centre has confirmed Thompson dates at the double for 2021.

Father Richard, the 71-year-old English folk-rock luminary, songwriter and guitarist, will play next summer’s Platform Festival, run by PAC at The Old Station, on July 21. Son Teddy, the English singer and songwriter long resident in New York City, is booked in for January 22.

This summer’s Covid-curtailed Platform Festival would have opened with comedian Omid Djalili on Thursday, followed by Robert Plant’s Saving Grace on Friday; Shed Seven’s Rick  Witter and Paul Banks headlining Super Saturday in acoustic mode and the BBC Big Band next Tuesday.

Fairport Convention alumnus Richard Thompson, who now lives in Montclair, New Jersey, after three decades in Los Angeles, was in the diary to close the festival next Wednesday. Instead, you will have to wait a year now.

Next January, son Teddy will showcase his sixth solo studio album, Heartbreaker Please, released on May 29 on Thirty Tigers.

“Here’s the thing, you don’t love me anymore,” sings Teddy on his frank contribution to the time-honoured break-up record club. “I can tell you’ve got one foot out the door.”

Teddy Thompson: Joining the break-up album club. Picture: Gary Waldman

From the off, Heartbreaker Please wrestles with the breakdown of love with wistful levity and devastating honesty. The songs are drawn from the demise of a real-life relationship, set against the backdrop of New York City, the place Thompson has called home for the better part of two decades, having left London for the USA at 18 and settled in the Big Apple five years later.

“I took a summer vacation that never ended,” he says. “In retrospect, I was trying to reinvent myself. It was easier to leave it all behind, go somewhere new and declare myself an artist. And you can actually re-invent yourself in America; step off the plane, say ‘my name is Teddy Thompson, I’m a musician’.”

In a departure for Teddy, at the [broken] heart of Heartbreaker Please are references to someone else doing the heart-breaking. “I’m usually the one who does that!” he says. “A defence mechanism, of course, but all of a sudden I was the one on the back foot. I was the ‘plus 1’, and I admit, I didn’t deal with it very well. But also, don’t date actors.”

The relationship ended just as Thompson was finishing penning the songs that would form Heartbreaker Please. “I tend to write sad songs, slow songs. It’s what comes naturally,” he says. “So I tried to make an effort here to set some of the misery to a nice beat! Let the listener bop their heads while they weep.”

Teddy, 44-year-old son of Richard and Linda Thompson, will be supported by another artiste with a folk-roots heritage: Roseanne Reid, eldest daughter of The Proclaimers’ Craig Reid.

Tickets for Thompson times two are on sale at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.

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Katie Melua announces new album for the autumn with York Barbican gig still in place

“Asking the essential timeless question about mad love”: Katie Melua’s new single A Love Like That

OVER the weekend, the serious Sunday papers were still carrying adverts for Katie Melua’s 45-date winter tour, taking in York Barbican on November 7.

We are no nearer to knowing when concert halls may re-open, but the Georgian-born Melua has announced the October 16 release of Album No. 8 – yes, her does-what-it-says-on-the-tin eighth studio album.

The accompanying tour was put in place last November in days of innocence before Covid re-wrote the rules of human engagement, but that does not stop the delivery of Melua’s “most cohesive and assured recording to date after a prolonged period of musical rediscovery” at 35.

Her most personal lyrics to date “attempt to reconcile the knotty complexities of real-life love to its fairytale counterpart, as Melua draws from the vernacular of folk songs to evoke a sense of magic-hour wonder mirrored by string arrangements whose depth and movement evoke Charles Stepney’s work with Rotary Connection and Ramsey Lewis”.

On her first studio set since 2016’s In Winter, the full track listing will be: A Love Like That; English Manner; Leaving The Mountain; Joy; Voices In The Night; Maybe I Dreamt It; Heading Home; Your Longing Is Gone; Airtime and Remind Me To Forget.

The artwork for Katie Melua’s….eighth album

Already doing the rounds is first single A Love Like That, a cinematic exploration of love, with lyrics by Melua, production by Leo Abrahams and a cast of musicians that embraces  drummer Emre Ramazanoglu, flautist Jack Pinter and the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra.

The video is the first in a series of collaborations between Melua and director Charlie Lightening, who has worked previously with Paul McCartney, Liam Gallagher and Kasabian. Joining Melua on screen is Star Wars, Dunkirk and MotherFatherSon actor Billy Howle.

“I’m really proud of the video,” says Katie. “I loved working with Charlie Lightening. We had lots of talks about how to make it a meaningful work and deal with the new limits on filming. We went with just me and Billy Howle on screen; we tried to show with subtle gestures and nuances the truth of love in its early stages. Hopefully, everyone can enjoy watching it.”

Charlie says: “It was so nice to collaborate with Katie on this project. We talked through the idea at length and honed what we wanted to achieve. It’s always so good when the artist has a strong idea of where the visual needs to go.

Katie Melua and Billy Howle: “Dealing with the new limits on filming” when making the video for A Love Like That

“It meant we could create a character and figure out this narrative journey that you go on throughout the film. The music is so cinematic, so to create this film has been so rewarding. Everything just came together perfectly in the end.”

Katie says of the writing process for A Love Like That: “This song is asking the essential timeless question about mad love: ‘How do you make a love like that last?’ But before it became about love between a couple, it started its life centred on my relationship with work and the stamina required to keep being an artist in the music industry.

“It was only after my co-composer Sam Dixon and I wrapped our session that I retreated to a cottage in the Cotswolds for three weeks to wrestle with the song’s lyrics. A Love Like That continues a narrative that is across the new album.  And in the context of love,  it’s about having the courage to speak openly and freely.”

Producer Leo Abrahams picks recording the orchestra in Tbilisi with Katie as his highlight. “The arrangement is written to convey the protagonist’s changing state of mind throughout the song: from turbulent to calm, sentimental to defiant,” he says. “Technically, this was probably the simplest arrangement on the record but we had to do almost 20 takes of the tremolando introduction to get the right amount of aggression but with an elegant resolution. The players seemed to enjoy it.” 

Melua last played York Barbican in December 2018, when she was joined by the Gori Women’s Choir. Tickets for November 7 are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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Thea Gilmore and Mary Coughlan move Pocklington Arts Centre concerts to 2021

Hat’s off to a new date: Thea Gilmore looks ahead to her re-arranged Pocklington solo show in October 2021

OXFORD singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore will play Pocklington Arts Centre on October 8 2021 on her first ever completely solo tour.

Held back by 12 months in response to the global pandemic, Thea, 40, now will be touring in September and October next year rather than this autumn.

In 2019, she released her fourth successive chart album, Small World Turning. Songs from all stages of a career stretching beyond two decades will make up her 2021 set, performed on guitar, keyboard and loop station

Since first stepping out aged 18, Gilmore has released18 albums and six EPs;  collaborated with “roots royalty” Billy Bragg, Joan Baez and The Waterboys; performed on BBC Radio 2 with Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and contributed songs to the soundtrack of the BAFTA-winning film Bait.

Third time luck of the Irish: first April, then September, now next April for Mary Coughlan’s Pocklington gig

“Like so many other shows, sadly Thea’s 2020 performance at PAC has been postponed, but all original tickets have been transferred to the new date and customers are being contacted by PAC staff,” says venue manager James Duffy.

Meanwhile, Irish jazz and blues chanteuse Mary Coughlan is re-arranging her Pocklington gig for a second time. First, she switched from April 21 to September 23 2020; now she has put PAC in her diary for April 23 2021. Again, staff will be in touch with ticket holders.

Coughlan, 64, is sticking to a September release for her new autobiographical album, Life Stories, preceded by a single this month, Two Breaking Into One.

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The Bowie Collective ch-ch-changes York Barbican date to next June…you know why

The man who fell to Earthling: Steve Evans in one of his many David Bowie guises in The Bowie Collective, replicating the Earthling album cover

CH-CH-CHANGES. The Bowie Collective tribute show at York Barbican on August 21 this summer is being re-scheduled for May 20 2021 in yet another Covid-enforced ch-ch-change. 

“All tickets remain valid for the new date,” says the Barbican. “Please get in touch with your point of purchase if you have any questions.”

Fronted by Steve Evans, The Bowie Collective “delivers a stunning and ambitious two-hour multi-media show worthy of the man himself. The mission is simple: To evoke the feeling of being at a Bowie gig, re-create the amazing studio recordings on the live stage and create a unique and intoxicating mix of dance and visuals, taking you on a sensory rollercoaster ride into the mind of the Rock’n’Roll Alien.”

Visuals, choreography, costumes, design, even holograms, go into the “first serious attempt to respectfully curate Bowie’s legacy”. Tickets are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk.

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And then there were two…as Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny perform online concert A Delightful Thing at NCEM

The loneliness of the socially distanced singer: Countertenor Iestyn Davies will have only lutenist Elizabeth Kenny for company, rather than the Dunedin Consort, at his York Early Music Festival concert

YORK countertenor Iestyn Davies should have been performing Bach: Countertenor Arias with Scottish instrumentalists the Dunedin Consort next Wednesday at the 2020 York Early Music Festival.

Instead, in a revised, streamlined, online version of the event now running from July 9 to 11, Iestyn switches from the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall to the National Centre for Early Music for a socially distanced concert with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, streamed from an otherwise empty St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, at 7.30pm next Thursday. Empty save for technical manager Ben Pugh recording the performance from across the floor.

“When Delma [festival administrative director Dr Delma Tomlin] got in touch, initially she wondered, ‘Could you still do the concert with the Dunedin?’, but they’re based in Scotland and we couldn’t have the whole consort down here under lockdown rules, so we decided that I’d rather re-schedule that concert,” says Iestyn.

“But I said, ‘look, I’m already doing a concert with Liz at Wigmore Hall, we could do one at the NCEM too, where I could do the readings as well as sing and we can have the building to ourselves for the day’.”

Consequently, Davies and Kenny, a former artistic adviser to the York Early Music Festival and frequent performer at the NCEM, will present A Delightful Thing, Music and Readings from a Melancholy Man, wherein the music of Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland will be complemented by Davies’s renditions and readings of poetry by Robert Burton, Michael Drayton, Rose Tremain, Leo Tolstoy and Dowland himself. Kenny will play theorbo.

“Dowland is known for his music of extraordinary misery but utter beauty,” says Delma Tomlin. “He knew that in love, the only thing sweeter than happiness was sorrow. Few living interpreters understand his music more profoundly than Iestyn, who has devised this evening of poetry, music and drama for voice and lute to explore a composer for whom a single teardrop can hold a universe of emotion.”

Davies and Kenny’s Wigmore Hall concert was broadcast live from London on BBC Radio 3 on June 22, drawing 750,000 listeners to their 1pm performance of works by Purcell, Dowland, Campion, Johnson, Mozart and Schubert.

Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny: Iestyn Davies’s socially distanced accompanist on theorbo for A Delightful Thing

“Phew, it’s over,” Tweeted Iestyn immediately after the Lunchtime Concert, one of a series of 20 recitals presented in the stillness of a Wigmore Hall devoid of an audience every weekday in June as part of BBC Arts’ Culture in Quarantine initiative.

“It was an absolute joy,” says Iestyn, of his first concert performance since performing to a packed Metropolitan Opera at the Lincoln Center in New York City on March 7.

“But what was strange was that it felt like taking an exam. We did the rehearsal in the hall the day before, and you think, ‘it’s not going to change that much’, but Martin [presenter Martin Handley] was seated at a desk like an examiner, and there was just the hush of an audience listening on their radios, where normally there’s applause.

“The great thing about live music is that it’s ephemeral, you perform, then it’s over, and people remember it differently afterwards even though they were together. But this was more of an exam experience, where you have to wait for your results, and the only way you can tell how you did is in the reviews…though two people I know in York said straightaway they enjoyed it!”

Marking his 40th birthday on September 16 last year, Iestyn was only one concert into a four-concert residency at Wigmore Hall when Covid-19 intervened, but he was delighted to take up the invitation to partake in the season of BBC Radio 3 recitals, each featuring a singer and a musician, all from Britain.

“My regular recital partner, [French lutenist] Thomas Dunford, lives in Paris, so that ruled him out, but Liz and I have performed regularly together before, and she’s one of those wonderful multi-strings-to-her-bow musicians, what with her being director of performance at the University of Oxford and professor of Lute at the Royal Academy of Music,” says Iestyn.

“I learnt that it’s good to give your voice a rest for three months,” says countertenor Iestyn Davies

New York in March, then silence, before the Davies-Kenny concerts this summer. “What’s been wonderful in lockdown has been there’s been no fear of missing out,” says Iestyn. “I also learnt that it’s good to give your voice a rest for three months.”

Rested…and now that pure, pure voice is in fine working order again: “Like getting back on a bike, or going back to the gym, it all starts to flow, though they say it’s one day’s work for every week you have off, but generally I try to pace things out anyway,’” says Iestyn. “When you’re busy with work, you press ‘Start’ and you know how to run the engine.”

Before the Wigmore Hall concert, he was able to “get back into the swing of singing” when recording 20 Schubert songs over four of five days in Suffolk, “singing carefully” five to six hours a day.

Iestyn may be happy to be performing once more, but he is perturbed by the Covid cloud hanging heavily over the performing arts world, the alarm bell clanging ever louder with the rise of the Let The Music Play campaign amid the calls for urgent financial support for venues and artists alike.

“No-one chose this situation, so it shouldn’t be about a popular vote, but Boris Johnson and [Culture Secretary] Oliver Dowden are playing to the gallery, the Prime Minister trying to win points by saying you can go to the pub,” says Iestyn.

“What they’ve done to the arts is devolve responsibility both financially and philosophically, and of course it doesn’t help that some people think of the arts the way they do.”

Before it is too late, you can play your part in supporting the arts by buying tickets  for the online York Early Music Festival at tickets.ncem.co.uk and boxoffice@ncem.co.uk, with a festival package at £30, individual concert tickets at £10 each and illustrated talks at £3.50 each. Access to the festival events is via ncem.co.uk, where full details of the July 9 to 11 programme can be found too.

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Liberation Day arrives on Saturday, but Lockdown is still a block to theatres and gigs. Nevertheless, here are More Things To Do on days in and days out, courtesy of The Press, York. LIST No. 9

Opening the gateway to venturing outdoors once more….

JULY 4 is “Liberation Day”, apparently, but not for theatres and concert halls. They can re-open, not for live performances, however, leaving them in a state of inertia that only exacerbates their growing crisis.

As for cinemas, tipped to return to life next weekend, the consensus is that July 31 is now looking the more likely re-start date for the summer blockbusters.

This column will steer clear of the pubs and bars and restaurants making their comebacks – you can read of that welcome uptick elsewhere – but focus on the widening opportunities for entertainment, enlightenment and exercise beyond the front door, while still highlighting the joys on the home front too.

CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these suggestions.

Back on track: Jorvik Viking Centre is “Good To Go” from next Saturday

Jorvik Viking Centre, re-opening on July 11

THE ever-resilient Jorvik Viking Centre is back on track from next Saturday with the Good To Go certification from Visit England, so all the boxes marked Government and industry Covid-19 guidelines have been ticked.

One important change is a switch to pre-booked visits only, with designated time slots every 20 minutes, to help control visitor flow and numbers, as well as extended hours over the summer months.

Within the building, in Coppergate, free-flow areas, such as the galleries will be more structured with presentations delivered by Viking interpreters, rather than video content or handling sessions.

Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny: Joining countertenor Iestyn Davies at a socially distanced National Centre for Early Music for York Early Music Festival online concert

York Early Music Festival, online from July 9 to 11

NEXT week’s “virtual” three-day event will be streamed online from the National Centre for Early Music, replacing the July 3 to 11 festival that would have celebrated Method & Madness. Concerts will be recorded at the NCEM’s home, St Margaret’s Church, in Walmgate, with social-distancing measures in place and no live audience.

York counter-tenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny present The Art Of Melancholy on July 9 at 7.30pm, when John Dowland’s Elizabethan music will be complemented by Davies’s renditions and readings of poetry by Robert Burton, Michael Drayton, Rose Tremain, Leo Tolstoy and Dowland himself.

On July 10, online concerts feature lute and theorbo player Matthew Wadsworth at 1pm, harpsichordist Steve Devine at 3.30pm and lyra viol player Richard Boothby at 7.30pm. July 11’s programme includes Consone Quartet at 1pm and Stile Antico at 7.30pm.

Tickets are on sale at tickets.ncem.co.uk and boxoffice@ncem.co.uk, with a festival package at £30, individual concert tickets at £10 each and illustrated talks at £3.50 each.

Richard Bainbridge RIP: York Musical Theatre Company will mark the first anniversary of his passing on Sunday

Remembering Richard, York Musical Theatre Company, Sunday, 7.30pm, online

YORK Musical Theatre Company will mark the first anniversary of leading light Richard Bainbridge’s exit stage left on Sunday with a special online memorial concert.

Streamed on YMTC’s YouTube channel, the 7.30pm programme will celebrate Richard’s theatrical life with songs from all the shows he loved and the many he graced with the company.

Taking part will be Eleanor Leaper; Matthew Ainsworth; John Haigh; Florence Taylor; Moira Murphy; Amy Lacy; Rachel Higgs; Peter Wookie; Matthew Clare; Chris Gibson; Helen Singhateh, Jessa & Mick Liversidge. Returning to the ranks will be professional York actor Samuel Edward-Cook, alias Sam Coulson in his YMTC days.

Joker: One of the films at the Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema in York

Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema, Knavesmire, York, tomorrow to Sunday

STATIC cinemas remain in the dark, but drive-in cinemas with social distancing rules in place have been given the Government green light.

North Easterners Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema are revving up for four screenings a day. Take your pick from the very familiar Mamma Mia!, The Jungle Book, The Lion King, Frozen 2, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Greatest Showman, A Star Is Born, 28 Days Later, Pulp Fiction and Joker. Tickets can be booked at dukescinema.epizy.com.

Interaction between staff and customers will be kept to a minimum, with cars parked two metres apart and those attending expected to remain within their vehicles for the duration of the screenings on LED screens with the sound transmitted to car radios.

Ready for a reading challenge? Here comes The Silly Squad

The Silly Squad, Explore York Libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge 2020, July 10 to September 18

GIVEN that Explore York’s libraries “aren’t open fully yet”, The Silly Squad Challenge is going virtual this summer, enabling children to take part online. There will be activities to do too, all on the same theme of fun, laughter and silliness.

The Silly Squad is a team of animal friends that loves to go on adventures and get stuck into all manner of funny books. This year, the Challenge features extra special characters designed by the author and illustrator Laura Ellen Anderson.

The Silly Squad website provides an immersive and safe environment for children to achieve their reading goals. Head to Explore’s website and join through the Summer Reading Challenge button.

Paul Weller: York Barbican in 2021; new album tomorrow

Keep seeking out the good news

NO Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad at York Theatre Royal from July 14, and Everybody’s no longer Talking About Jamie at Leeds Grand Theatre that week too. Even the Downing Street daily briefings are off after all the unintended humour of 24 episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour.

However, all’s Weller that’s Paul Weller as the Modfather’s autumn 2020 gig at York Barbican is moved to June 29 2021. In the meantime, his new album, On Sunset, is out tomorrow.

Drag diva Velma Celli, the creation of York actor Ian Stroughair, has announced another online outing, The Velma Celli Show, Kitchen, on July 11 at 8pm.

Kitchen sing drama: York drag diva Velma Celli announces latest online show on the home front

And what about…?

BBC One revisiting Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues, each one even starker in their isolation in these dislocated times of solitary confinement, shielding, loneliness and finding other people irritating. The Leeds playwright, now 86, has added two ones to his 1988 collection. “Quite bleak,” he says.

New albums by Neil Young (“new” but unearthed 1970s’ recordings); Jessie Ware, Nadine Shah and Haim.

Scarborough Art Gallery unlocking its doors from this weekend. A walk on York’s city walls with its new temporary one-way system in place for social distancing from Saturday….and then drop down for a drink at Grays Court Hotel’s new walled garden bar, in the shadow of York Minster.

Or a walk along Pocklington Canal, but watch out for the two swans, guarding their nine cygnets by the water’s edge.

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Would you want to be judged by the evil eye of Wicked’s Elphaba? Here’s your chance in the Yorkshire’s Got Talent contest

Yorkshire’s Got Talent judging panellist Laura Pick in her West End role as Elphaba in Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, London. Who will Laura pick to win with her fellow judges?

YORK teenage musical theatre performer Hannah Wakelam is launching the Yorkshire’s Got Talent Virtual Contest to boost the Joseph Rowntree Theatre’s Raise The Roof campaign, with Wicked’s Elphaba among the judges.

Hannah, 19, who has appeared many times on the JoRo stage, has signed up three VIP guests to judge the event: Wicked star Laura Pick, West End regular and cruise ship vocal captain Nathan Lodge and Ripon vocal coach Amelia Urukalo.

Entries are open from now until August 1 for a contest with a £100 prize. “All types of performers are encouraged to enter and to show off what they can do,” says Hannah. “Whether it’s singing, dancing, playing a musical instrument, performing a circus act, the list is endless.”

The cost of entries is a minimum donation of £5 to the Raise The Roof appeal and no age restrictions apply. “Because of lockdown rules, entrants will be asked to submit a short video of themselves performing their acts,” says Hannah. “The winner will receive £100 and their online performances will be seen right across the Yorkshire area.”

Hannah Wakelam: Yorkshire’s Got Talent Virtual Contest organiser and Raise The Roof fundraiser

The Haxby Road theatre needs to find £90,000 to go towards roof repairs to the Art Deco building to ensure the JoRo will be around for future generations of Yorkshire performers.

Graham Mitchell, the theatre’s events and fundraising director, says: “Hannah got in touch with us the very day that our appeal was launched and offered to do a fundraiser within the overall campaign. 

“Already we’ve had lots of people express an interest in the contest and now that the judges have been announced, we expect levels of interest to take off.”

Heading up the panel is Laura Pick, from Wakefield, who was flying high as Elphaba in Wicked in the West End until the Covid-19 lockdown stopped her Defying Gravity.

Yorkshire’s Got Talent judge Amelia Urukalo

Fellow judge Nathan Lodge, originally from York and no stranger to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, has many West End credits, complemented by his career as a vocal captain on cruise ships. 

The third judge, vocal coach Amelia Urukalo, has experience aplenty in judging talent competitions and runs the Upstage Academy performing arts studio in Ripon.

The Yorkshire area is teeming with performing talent, not least on the Rowntree Theatre stage: a training ground and launchpad for many professional acting careers, such as Harry Potter and Broadchurch actor David Bradley, Emmerdale and Casualty actor Ian Kelsey and West End musical theatre performer Scott Garnham.

Nathan says: “I really believe that the industry is full of exceptionally talented people who started out in Yorkshire and I can’t wait to see what the future of talent from home looks like.”

“I can’t wait to see what the future of talent from home looks like,” says Yorkshire’s Got Talent judge Nathan Lodge, who took his early theatrical steps at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre

The JoRo launched its Raise The Roof campaign last month by creating an online music video, put together “virtually” during lockdown. Last Saturday morning, an online fitness class raised almost £300 for the campaign.

The total stands at £2,673, more than half of the £5,000 target for this early stage of the overall £90,000 appeal. Almost 100 people have donated so far, testament to the campaign gathering momentum.

Dan Shrimpton, chair of trustees of the Joseph Rowntree Theatre charity, says: “We launched the campaign with several of our own team performing a music video, then we held an online fitness class hosted by Hannah King, which lots of our supporters took part in.

“Yorkshire’s Got Talent is the third event in a chain of many fundraisers that we already have in the pipeline. We know this competition will be hugely popular as it’s open to everyone in the Yorkshire region, whether they’ve performed at our venue or not.  It’s simply a celebration of local talent, all the while supporting a great community cause.”

The auditorium at the Art Deco-designed Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in Haxby Road, York

To launch the Raise The Roof campaign, the JoRo has set up a Just Giving page and is encouraging people to “donate even just the amount of a takeaway coffee”.  To do so, go to justgiving.com/campaign/Raise-the-Roof.

Full rules and details of how to enter Yorkshire’s Got Talent can be found here: Facebook: facebook.com/groups/687590815139642/about; Instagram: instagram.com/yorkshiresgottalent/.

The judges will select a final ten from the entries and the contest will progress from there through a process of elimination until the winner is declared.

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“How lucky we were to have known him” – York Musical Theatre Company remembers Richard Bainbridge in night of song online

Richard Bainbridge: Memorial online concert on Sunday to honour a year since his passing on July 5 2019

YORK Musical Theatre Company will mark the first anniversary of leading light Richard Bainbridge’s exit stage left on Sunday with a special online memorial concert.

Streamed on YMTC’s YouTube channel, the 7.30pm programme will celebrate Richard’s theatrical life with songs from all the shows he loved and the many he graced with the company.

Richard passed away last summer at the age of 64 after a long association with York Musical Theatre Company – formerly known as York Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society until 2002 – as actor, director and latterly company chairman.

Taking part on Sunday night will be Eleanor Leaper; Matthew Ainsworth; John Haigh; Florence Taylor; Moira Murphy; Amy Lacy; Rachel Higgs; Peter Wookie; Matthew Clare; Chris Gibson; Helen Singhateh and Jessa & Mick Liversidge.

“There’ll be a group performance from YMTC members too and we’re thrilled to have professional actor Samuel Edward-Cook – Sam Coulson in his YMTC days – back with us performing a special number,” says director Paul Laidlaw.

Sam’s back: York actor Samuel Edward-Cook, pictured in his leading role in Glory Dazed in 2019, will be returning to the York Musical Theatre Company ranks, albeit remotely, for Sunday’s online concert

He is keeping the running order and who will be singing each number under wraps as a surprise for Richard’s family.

Among those songs will be Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’, from Oklahoma!; As Long As He Needs Me, from Oliver!; Tomorrow, from Annie; Mister Snow, from Carousel; Some Enchanted Evening, from South Pacific; Seeing Is Believing, from Aspects Of Love, and My Time Of Day, from Guys And Dolls.

“It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since we lost our dear friend and colleague, Richard,” says Paul. “I think I can speak for the whole company when I say how much we still miss him.

“His enthusiasm, drive and, above all, his incredible sense of humour would have been a tonic in these extraordinary times. He would, of course, have been actively taking part in the Off-stage But Online concerts we are presenting under lockdown, and with a mixture of encouragement, bribery, coercion and threats he would have made sure that everyone else took part too.”

Looking ahead to Sunday’s memorial celebration, Paul says: “We wanted this next concert, falling on the anniversary of his death, to be dedicated to Richard. Many of the performers have fond memories of working alongside him and the song choices often reflect moments spent with him on stage. Happy memories, tinged with sadness of course but, oh, how lucky we were to have known him.”

To watch Sunday’s concert, type in the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiTrGyeP93_to9uYOsvoS4w

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Divorced, beheaded and now the Queens are back for a drive-in summer of SIX The Musical in…Church Fenton UPDATED

Six of the best: The West End cast in SIX The Musical in 2019

THEATRE has been hit for six by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, but SIX The Musical has found a way to make a summer comeback as a drive-in theatre experience at a Church Fenton airport.

Leeds East Airport is among 12 locations nationwide picked for Live Nation Entertainment’s Utilita Live From The Drive-In: SIX The Musical, The Live Concert, as the West End and tour casts take to the road in August and September to present the full musical version in the open air.

Church Fenton’s six performances of SIX – how apt – will start at 9pm on August 11; 5pm, August 13; 9pm, August 14, and 5pm and 9pm, August 15 and 16. Tickets for “the first West End musical to perform again after lockdown” will go on sale at 8am on Friday, July 3 at livenation.co.uk/artist/six-the-musical-ticket.

“For the next three months, SIX will be the only stage musical anyone starved of theatre in the country is able to see,” say producers Kenny Wax, Wendy and Andy Barnes and George Stiles.

Designed to comply with all official guidelines in these Covid-19 times, Utilita Live From The Drive-In will “deliver a drive-in experience boasting concert-quality sound from a live stage with a full state-of-the-art sound system, lighting rig and high-definition LED screens”.

The tour poster for SIX The Musical’s summer season of drive-in shows

This will create an arena or stadium concert feel in a safe drive-in setting adhering to the Government’s social-distancing rules to protect fans, artists, crews and staff at all times.

Customers will arrive by car but then can step outside, picnic and party while they watch the “festival-style” live stage show from their own dedicated area next to their vehicle. Up to 300 vehicles can park up for each show with a maximum of seven people allowed in each one.

Now billed as “Divorced, Beheaded, Drive – Live In Concert”, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss‘s SIX is the “electrifying musical phenomenon that everyone has lost their head over”. First presented by Cambridge University students at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the show has been catapulted into a West End and international hit en route to being named the Musical of the Decade by WhatsOnStage.

From Tudor queens to pop princesses, the six wives of Henry VIII take to the mic in SIX to tell their tales, remixing 500 years of historical heartbreak into a 75-minute celebration of 21st-century girl power where these queens may have green sleeves but their lipstick is rebellious red.

“You’ve seen them in theatres across the world, streamed their album countless times and now you can join the rest of the Queendom for a party and picnic on a Utilita Live From The Drive-In arena stage!” says the drive-in publicity machine.

The joy of SIX: The SIX The Musical cast at the Arts Theatre in London

“This intoxicating Tudor take by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss is a histo-remixed pop-concert musical you won’t forget. The Queens are back, so grab your crowns and your picnic blankets and get down like it’s 1533.”

SIX The Musical and Utilita Live From The Drive-In will link up this summer from August 4 to September 12 for shows at Colesdale Farm, London; Birmingham Resorts World Arena; University of Bolton Stadium, Bolton; Filton Airfield, Bristol; Cheltenham Racecourse; the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh; Leeds East Airport, Church Fenton, near Leeds; Lincoln, Central Docks, Liverpool; The National Bowl, Milton Keynes; the July Course, Newmarket Racecourse, and Teesside International Airport.

Producer Kenny Wax, president of the Society of London Theatre, says: “We are delighted that SIX will spearhead the re-opening of one of London and the UK’s most popular shows. With the industry in crisis, theatres struggling and some even going out of business, this drive-in event offers hope for the future and, equally importantly, jobs for about 50 of our company including cast, musicians, stage managers, technicians and freelancers.

“We are using both our West End and UK touring casts, rehearsing and touring them in a bubble and having them work in teams of six – fortunate for us – as per the government guidance.”

As the Coronavirus pandemic struck, SIX fans were left disappointed when sold-out runs at the Arts Theatre in London and up and down the country on the UK tour had to be cancelled. All those touring dates have been moved to 2021.

Natalie Paris in SIX The Musical in the West End in 2019. Picture: Eleanor Howarth

Any questions before you start the engine?
Which SIX cast members will be performing?
“We are sending the Arts Theatre cast and the UK Tour casts on tour subject to the Queens’ own availability. We can’t guarantee any individual cast members at specific performances. Church Fenton will have the Arts Theatre cast.”

Will we be seeing the full show?
“Yes, the whole show will be performed live from start to finish. The duration is 75 minutes and there is no interval.”

Will the cast be wearing their show costumes?
“Yes.”

Is the show being performed as a concert or with full choreography?
“The cast will be performing the show with full choreography.”

 How will we see the stage and the cast if we are parked a long way away?
“Like most concerts, there will be large screens either side of the stage and live show footage played on the screens.”

Wife strife: One of Henry VIII’s queens in SIX The Musical, on tour in 2019. Picture: Johan Persson

Can we sing and dance along?
“We hope you can enjoy yourselves without spoiling the enjoyment of others around you.

Will the music be played live by the musicians?
“Yes, the musicians, our ‘ladies in waiting’, will be playing live”.

Will we be able to “meet and greet” the Queens after the show for autographs and photos?
“Due to current social-distancing guidelines related to Covid-19, sadly the cast will not be available after the performance to meet audience members.”

Did you know?

SIX made its debut as a Cambridge University student production in a 100-seat room at Sweet Venue at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Queen scene: SIX The Musical on its knees on tour in 2019. Picture: Johan Persson

Not only was SIX playing London’s West End and across the UK and Australia when Covid-19 intervened, but also its opening night on Broadway on March 12 was called off when, three hours before showtime, the New York Governor shut down theatreland.

SIX was nominated for five Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical, and won the What’s On Stage Award for Best Musical 2020. Songs from the SIX studio album are streamed on average 450,000 times per day, making it the second-highest streaming musical theatre recording in the world after Hamilton.

SIX was written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, with direction by Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage; choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille; set design by Emma Bailey; costume design by Gabriella Slade; lighting design by Tim Deiling; sound design by Paul Gatehouse; musical orchestration by Tom Curran; musical supervision by Joe Beighton and musical direction by Katy Richardson.

For a taster of SIX The Musical, go to: youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Ll9qTeUJ_50&fbclid=IwAR0rnG28Gtzt0FQjZERN33thjfpnND0ahuNKD4D_BVskdPILAwCEcTcHOIs&app=desktop