Sollazzo Ensemble: 2017 winners of the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition
THE National Centre for Early Music’s lockdown season of free concerts from York presents a double bill of Sollazzo Ensemble and BarrocoTout on Saturday.
“We have selected the very best concerts from two ensembles who won the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition in 2015 and 2017 respectively,” says director Dr Delma Tomlin.
To view these concerts for free at 1pm, follow facebook.com/yorkearlymusic/ or log on to the NCEM website, ncem.co.uk.
Directed by mediaeval fiddle player Anna Danilevskaia, joined by sopranos Perrine Devillers and Yukie Sato, tenor Vivien Simon, fiddle player Sophia Danilevskaia and harpist Vincent Kibildis, the Swiss group were recorded on July 11 2015.
Formed in 2014 in Basel, Switzerland, where the members were all studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, that year they were selected for the “EEEmerging” programme supported by Creative Europe, going on to win the main prize in the YorkEarly Music International Young Artists Competition and the public’s Friends of York Early Music Festival Prize in 2015.
They built their winning performance around Jehan de Cordoval and Jehan Ferrandes, two blind fiddle players in the 15th century court of Burgundy, playing works by Guillaume Dufay and Loyset Compère, among others, that they would have peformed .
“Cordoval and Ferrandes caught our attention because, unlike many medieval musicians known today, they were famous exclusively as performers, not as composers or theorists,” said Anna.
BarrocoTout: 2015 winners of the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition
“Soloists before the time of soloism: the simple fact of their existence and their success offers us a perspective on the richness of the musical scene at the Burgundian court in the 15th century.”
BarracoTout, from Belgium, were recorded on July 15 2017 when winning the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, having been selected in 2015 for the EEEmerging programme (EEE standing for ‘Emerging European Ensembles’)
Carlota Garcia, flute, Izana Soria,violin, Edouard Catalan, cello, and Ganael Schneider, harpsichord, presented To Paris And Back: Return, a programme of 17th and 18th century works by Henri-Jacques de Croes, Jean-Marie Leclair and Georg Philipp Telemann.
In 2018, they recorded their first album for Linn Records, La Sonate Égarée, an album dedicated to Henri-Jacques de Croes.
Izana Soria said of her fellow Belgian: “Born in Antwerp, de Croes was an important innovator of his time. He was maître de musiqueof the Chapelle Royale in Brussels and Frankfurt, and, like Telemann, able to synthesise the Italian, French and German styles in his sonatas and symphonies.
“The Largo of his sixth sonata has an operatic lyricism, whereas the Fuga combines markedly rhythmical passages, typically baroque dissonances and pre-classical articulations, with a polished and convincing result.”
Formed in Brussels in 2013, BarrocoTout take their name from a sketch on the Spanish comedy show Muchachada Nui: Barroco Tu (meaning “Baroque yourself”), and their mission is to explore work written for their four-piece formation by well-known composers, while also re-discovering other composers who have fallen into oblivion.
Velma Celli’s show poster for Me & My Divas on Saturday
“DARLINGS, I am in London for a bit to try and get things moving and it’s safe to say that it is depressing as F!” So wrote York drag diva divine Velma Celli to her adoring devotees on email on Saturday lunchtime.
“Anyway, I’ll plod on as long as I can. So, I am doing my show ‘Me & My Divas’ next Saturday [June 27] and I would LOVE for you to join me LIVE from LANDAN!”
Since then, Velma, the glorious cabaret creation of actor Ian Stroughair, has returned to Bishopthorpe, from where his series of online performances, streamed live from the Case De Velma Celli kitchen, will resume this weekend.
Here Charles Hutchinson has a quick catch-up with Velma in the lead-up to Saturday’s virtual date with divas galore.
“Crazy. talented and confidence to suit”: Velma Celli’s three steps to being a diva
How did it feel heading back to London from York after three months in home-town lockdown?
“It was both exciting and nerve-wracking…”
…You say you went back to London to “try and get things moving”. What can you do at this stage?
“I was hoping to network with restaurants and other smaller venues planning to open on July 4, but it was impossible, so I’m back in York for two weeks.”
How did your last online York kitchen show, Equinox, go on June 13? What did you perform with your remote guest Jodie Steel, the West End star of Wicked, Six and Rock Of Ages?
“It was the best yet! SO much fun. Jodie and I sang Take Me Or Leave Me from Rent [the American musical in which Ian Stroughair played the messianic Angel].
What’s the history of Me & My Divas?
“I first performed it in January this year in Perth, Australia, at Fringeworld, winning the Best Cabaret award for the season.”
What’s the content of this new show?
“No diva is safe, no riff she won’t sing – so strap yourself in and let the belt-off begin.
“Me & My Divas is an overindulgent diva fest celebrating the songs and behaviour of all of your favourite divas, including Celine, Mariah, Whitney, Aretha, Cher, Britney (maybe not!) and many more.”
Definitely being one yourself, what are the qualifications required to be a diva, Velma?
“Crazy, talented and confidence to suit.”
Will you have a guest joining you remotely, like you did with Twinnie, Louise Dearman and Jodie Steel for your previous online shows?
“I am working on this. Hopefully I will.”
What are your upcoming plans as lockdown loosens ever more expansively?
“Darlings, you can now book Velma OR Ian to perform privately for your ‘Bubble’ in your outside space/garden or publicly if you have a venue with enough room for social distancing indoors or out!!!
Global Voices, pictured by Mark Lamb in pre-Coronavirus social-distancing days
SCARBOROUGH’S Stephen Joseph Theatre is taking its two community choirs online from next week to work on songs culminating in a video.
The Funky Choir and Global Voices each have around 30 members and both always welcome new members.
The SJT’s associate director for children and young people, Cheryl Govan, herself a Funky Choir member, says: ”Singing is a great way to unwind – we all do it in the shower! – and it really doesn’t matter if you’re a brilliant singer or not. Singing is scientifically proven to make you feel happier.
“Don’t be put off if you think you can’t sing: this is about having a good time. The best bit about Zoom choirs is that only the people in your own house can hear you!”
The Funky Zoom Choir will meet on Tuesdays at 7pm from June 30 after going from strength to strength in the past few years, developing a varied and colourful set of lively pop, funk, disco and soul covers.
Musical director Mark Gordon, a prominent face on the Scarborough music scene for more than 30 years, performs regularly with many bands and takes on the role of musical director for theatre shows.
The Funky Choir, one of the Stephen Joseph Theatre’s two community choirs, will be meeting on Zoom from June 30. Picture: Mark Lamb
Mark teaches music in Scarborough schools and runs youth orchestras, jazz bands, rock workshops and choirs, as well as being a private piano teacher.
The Global Voices Zoom choir will gather remotely on Thursdays at 7pm from July 2 to resume singing songs from around the world, from warm-ups, short rounds and chants to more complex, exciting songs.
Choir leader, music teacher and composer Sarah Dew creates musical journeys in soundscapes that blend her field recordings, melody and ambient sound art. Poetic narrative features in many of her ethereal works and she has written extensively for her band Raven, whose performances around the region over many years celebrate life, love and the universe.
Looking forward to next week’s re-start, Cheryl Govan says: “The Funky Choir will be learning Car Washby Rose Royce – a funky song if ever there were one! The end result will be a fun and lively video.
“Global Voices will be learning Nina Simone’s I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, giving participants the chance to reflect on what freedom means to them. This reflective, but super-fun, process will result in a thoughtful video to accompany the song.”
Membership of The Funky Choir and Global Voices costs £35 each for a five-week term. For more information, go to: sjt.uk.com/getinvolved/adult.
Skylights: York band are making friends with their hit single Enemies
BUOYED by their Enemies anthem entering the official physical singles chart at number two at the weekend, York indie-rock band Skylights have booked their biggest headline show yet.
The Leeds United-supporting four-piece from Acomb will top the bill at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on Saturday, February 20 2021, with tickets going on sale on Wednesday at 9am at seetickets.com/tour/skylights. “Where better [to play] than one of the country’s number one venues, the Brudenell,” they enthused on Twitter today.
In April, Skylights signed a deal with 42’s Records to launch their debut album, whose title and release date are now awaited.
In the meantime, singer Rob Scarisbrick, guitarist Turnbull Smith, bass player Jonny Scarisbrick and drummer Myles Soley are celebrating the chart success of Enemies. “What a few weeks it’s been for us. Waiting for the charts felt like forever,” they said on Twitter.
“No-one has the type of loyal fan base we have. The number two position for a song that was available for streaming since January is down to our fans and I hope you all feel part of it.”
York countertenor Iestyn Davies: Two concerts with Elizabeth Kenny, one today on BBC Radio 3, the second at York Early Music Festival on July 9
IF you can’t wait for York countertenor Iestyn Davies’s July 9 concert with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny at the online 2020 York Early Music Festival, tune into BBC Radio 3 today.
At 1pm, Davies and Kenny will be introduced by Martin Handley live at London’s Wigmore Hall, where they will perform works by Purcell, Dowland, Campion, Johnson, Mozart and Schubert.
In York next month, Davies and Kenny, a former artistic adviser to the York Early Music Festival, will team up at a socially distanced, otherwise empty National Centre for Early Music for The Art Of Melancholy.
Streamed live from the former St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, their 7.30pm programme will combine the music of Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland with Davies’s renditions and readings of poetry by Robert Burton, Michael Drayton, Rose Tremain, Leo Tolstoy and Dowland himself.
Tickets for the July 9 to 11 festival 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.
Back to today’s live Lunchtime Concert, one of a series of 20 recitals being broadcast from Wigmore Hall every weekday in June as part of BBC Arts’ Culture in Quarantine initiative.
Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny
Taking place without an audience present, these are the first live concert broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 since the start of lockdown, bringing together “some of the UK’s finest instrumentalists and singers in music from the 16th century to the present day”.
Today’s hour-long programme comprises:
Purcell: Strike The Viol from Come, Ye Sons Of Art Away; Purcell: By Beauteous Softness from Now Does The Glorious Day Appear; Purcell: Lord, What Is Man?; Purcell: Rigadoon (arranged by Elizabeth Kenny); Purcell: Sefauchi’s Farewell (arr. Elizabeth Kenny); Purcell: Lilbulero (arr. Elizabeth Kenny).
Dowland: Behold A Wonder Here Opus; Campion: The Sypres Curten Of The Night Is Spread; Johnson: Fantasie; Dowland: Sorrow, Stay, Lend True Repentant Tears; Dowland: King Of Denmark’s Galliard; Campion: I Care Not For These Ladies; Anon: Mr Confess’ Coranto.
Mozart: Abendempfindung; Schubert: Heidenröslein; Schubert: Litanei Auf Das Fest Aller Seelen.
Melody Gardot looking out over the Paris skyline during lockdown
MELODY Gardot’s lockdown single From Paris With Love est arrivé “after incredible efforts made by fans to help finish the track”.
Confined in the French capital, where she now lives, the American singer-songwriter made headlines last month when she launched a call-out on social networks for musicians to join her on her remote new project with a “global yet personal tone”.
After reviewing hundreds of the online submissions from the United States, Armenia, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Norway and beyond, the final piece is ready, completed in the first session at London’s Abbey Road studios after lockdown.
From Paris With Love combines the musicality and skills of orchestral musicians from all over the world who have never met, many of them out of work these past few months, unable to perform under COVID-19 strictures.
The artwork for Melody Gardot’s From Paris With Love single in aid of healthcare workers
The hopelessness of this continuing situation for Gardot’s fellow musicians inspired the New Jersey-born singer to embark on her ambitious digital recording in isolation. All musicians chosen for the final project were paid a fee relative to the standard UK musicians’ studio wage.
“This project is a stunning example of how music is a universal language and how our global awareness is greater than ever” says Gardot, 35. “Seeing what’s happening around the world, we cannot ignore our need for love and connection during this time.
“I am so happy to see the generous response displayed in the vast array of characters, from all corners of the globe, coming together to create this unique piece of music. It is a symbolic gesture for the way we can offer hope as we look towards the idea of creation in the future.”
The global digital orchestra musicians were selected by producer Larry Klein, conductor, arranger and composer Vince Mendoza and veteran engineers Al Schmitt and Steve Genewick, who have worked in the past with Frank Sinatra, Joao Gilberto, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.
From Paris With Love….and a heart
From Paris With Love’s accompanying video captures the selected musicians performing from their homes, complemented by a montage of people who sent video portraits of themselves with messages of love from all over the globe.
“This video is a kind of a digital postcard, made possible by the generous contributions of musicians and people currently confined,” says Gardot. “My hope is that this message will continue to find its way around the world and bring hope where hope is most needed to leave us all feeling more connected. My most heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in the making of this project.”
Earlier this month, Gardot had the honour of being the first artist through the doors when Abbey Road Studio re-opened for business after ten weeks for a socially distanced album recording session.
From Paris With Love is being released on the Decca Records label to benefit healthcare workers; both Decca and Gardot are waiving their profit, instead paying a minimum of 50p to the charity Protégé Ton Soignant for each permanent download sold in the UK and 20p for each permanent download sold outside Britain or for every 150 streams.
Oh, what a Knight: Chris Knight as Donkey in York Stage Musicals’ Shrek The Musical in September 2019. Shrek will return to the Grand Opera House in 2021
YORK Stage Musicals are to present The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in…2022.
“Theatres may be closed at the moment but that does not stop us planning for the future,” says artistic director Nik Briggs.
“We are honoured to be producing The Hunchback Of Notre Dame at the Grand Opera House in Autumn 2022. With lyrics by Wicked’s Stephen Schwartz and music by Aladdin’s Alan Menken, this is a very exciting project for us indeed.
“It was one where we were approached by the rights holders, like with Shrek The Musical. We love that because we’re not in the rat race to get it, and it’s nice they value the work we do, especially with Disney, who have very strict regulations.”
The York Stage diary for 2021 is taking shape with Shrek The Musical confirmed for a return to the Grand Opera House next spring, over the Easter holidays, and rights secured for Elf next winter.
Jacob Husband, as Adam, front, Alex Weatherhill, as Bernadette, and Joe Wawrzyniak, as Tick, in York Stage Musicals’ Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, The Musical, at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Benedict Tomlinson
More shows are being lined up too, not least a new work from Alex Weatherhill, who starred as Bernadette in York Stage Musicals’ production of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, The Musical, in September 2017.
“Alex came to see us in Tim Firth’s The Flint Street Nativity and Steel Magnolias and said he wanted to do something for us, and we’re delighted as he writes the summer show at the Bridlington Spa,” says Nik.
Shrek The Musical will bring York Stage full circle, being the last show the company staged at the Grand Opera House before the Coronavirus pandemic shut down theatres and the first to be mounted by YSM once the Cumberland Street theatre re-opens.
As for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Nik says: “It’s a show we’ve always wanted to look at doing because it’s never been done in the West End, only in America, so it will be nice to bring it to York.”
Indeed it will but, after his tour de force as Shrek in Shrek The Musical last September, will Nik be playing the Hunchback? “Definitely not,” he insists. That Autumn 2022 slot still leaves plenty of time to change his mind, however.
FROM The Jam and The Selecter will form a double bill at York Barbican on January 15 2021, given a fair wind with further progress on Covid-19 social-distancing measures enabling the venue to re-open.
Founder bassist Bruce Foxton and vocalist/guitarist Russell Hastings’ band will be touring Britain to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Sound Affects, The Jam’s fifth studio album, performing this 1980 release in its entirety, complemented by a Jam back-catalogue selection.
Recorded by Foxton, frontman Paul Weller and drummer Rick Buckler, Sound Affects peaked at number two in the UK charts and boasted two of The Jam’s most-loved singles, Start! and That’s Entertainment.
From The Jam formed in 2007, originally with Buckler as the drummer until 2009, and have performed around the world, as well as charting with their 2017 album From The Jam Live!.
Pauline Black and Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson of special guests The Selecter
Joining them as special guests on the 2021 tour will be Coventry ska group The Selecter, fronted by Pauline Black and featuring original member Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson.
They too will be marking a 40th anniversary, in their case their 1980 2 Tone debut, Too Much Pressure, played in full, bolstered by further Selecter favourites. Expect to hear Three Minute Hero, On The Radio, Too Much Pressure, Missing Words, James Bond, The Whisper, Celebrate The Bullet and Frontline.
Tickets for January 15 are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk. Meanwhile, the Barbican website is yet to write the word Postponed across From The Jam’s July 11 gig this summer, already moved from April 3 after the Coronavirus lockdown. Watch this space for an update on a show built around the 40th anniversary of The Jam’s fourth studio album, Setting Sons, the one with The Eton Rifles, the Woking three-piece’s first top ten hit, peaking at number three.
“We can’t wait to perform the whole of Setting Sons live,” said Hastings when the 2020 tour was first announced. “The album has been noted as another one of The Jam’s best albums along with All Mod Cons. It seems that even the obscure album tracks like Little Boy Soldiers and Thick As Thieves are as popular when we play them live as the hit singles.” Will that tour ever happen? Wait and see.
Singers and musicians recording Up On The Roof remotely for the Joseph Rowntree Theatre’s Raise The Roof campaign
THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in York, is launching a song on You Tube to help raise £5,000 towards vital roof repairs.
At a time when the future is looking bleak for many theatres in the Coronavirus crisis, York’s community theatre in Haxby Road is determined to buck the trend of depressing news by using lockdown as a chance to further its expansion plans.
Launching the online video this week kick-starts Raise The Roof, the JoRo’s fundraising campaign with a £90,000 target.
Aptly, the choice of song is a cover of The Drifters’ hit Up On The Roof, written in 1962 by Gerry Goffin and Carole King.
Jess Douglas: Arranger, pianist, co-organiser
The video has been produced, arranged and performed by York performers who call the Art Deco building their theatrical home, many of them also counting themselves among the JoRo’s army of volunteers. Put together during lockdown via socially distanced media, it can be viewed at youtu.be/IPsw4VQcMsg.
Stage manager Ollie Nash and Jessica Douglas, a regular musical director of shows at the JoRo, have brought together a team of singers and musicians to create the video. “It’s been a real challenge under lockdown conditions,” says Ollie. “In the week leading up to its release, I spent 30 hours pulling all the bits together for the final edit.”
Arranged by Jessica and mixed and edited by Ollie, Up On The Roof is performed by Abigail Atkinson, Chris Gibson, Helen Singhateh, Jennie Wogan, Nick Sephton, Paul Blenkiron, Ruth McCartney, Sandy Nicholson and Susan Blenkiron. Backing them in the recording are Jessica Douglas, piano, Clark Howard, drums, Georgia Johnson, bass, Damien Sweeting, guitar, and Emily Jones and Tom Marlow, violin.
Graham Mitchell, the JoRo’s fundraising and events director, says: “We’ve had great fun putting this video together. The fact that so many of our performing and volunteering community came together ‘virtually’ to produce it shows just how much the future success of the theatre means to them.”
Ollie Nash: Spent 30 hours “pulling all the bits together for the final video edit”
Against a backdrop of growing fears over the future for many arts venues across the country, the Joseph Rowntree Theatre believes it is in a “particularly strong position”.
How come? Because the charity that runs it owns the building and the theatre is operated entirely by more than 170 unpaid volunteers.
Dan Shrimpton, chair of the board of trustees, says: “We’re using this period of enforced closure to look after and improve the fabric of the building. The roof repairs need to be completed before we can move on with our major plans to expand the building.
“The new insulation and solar panels will significantly reduce our operating costs and also the impact we have on the environment. The expansion plans will make our venue even greener and more accessible.”
A peck on the cheek of a teenage Judi Dench from a cheeky young chap at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre is a favourite anecdote among theatre volunteers
The roof has stood the test of time, not needing any major work since the theatre was built 85 years ago. The Raise The Roof appeal is not the first time it has appeared in a news article, however. In 2012, the Daily Telegraph published the story of a teenage Judi Dench coming down from the roof after watching the sunset with a group of friends.
One brave young man took the opportunity to sneak a quick kiss on the way down the ladder! Dame Judi does not remember the name of the cheeky chap, but it is a favourite anecdote among the theatre’s volunteers.
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”. Go to: justgiving.com/campaign/Raise-the-Roof.
The Joseph Rowntree Theatre, in Haxby Road, York
Did you know?
THE Joseph Rowntree Theatre was built by the Joseph Rowntree Village Trustees as a place for recreation and education for the benefit of Rowntree employees and the York community.
Seebohm Rowntree opened the Haxby Road theatre in 1935. It remains a vital community asset, run entirely by volunteers for the people of York. A board of 13 trustees and 170 volunteers give 17,000 hours of volunteering time every year.
Last year, the JoRo put on more than 135 performances, staged by 35 York groups and several professional touring companies.
Can’t wait to get out, like these sled dog racers in Dalby Forest from Tony Batholomew’s online exhibition Forest 100: A Year In The Life? If so, read on…
METRE by metre, Downing Street daily briefing by catch-you-by-surprise Downing Street daily briefing, we are moving closer to the beginning of the end of the 10 Things To See Next Week In York shutdown.
However, there is still no theatre, concert venue or cinema re-opening for the foreseeable future, although cinemas are making plans to do so in July. Watch this ever-shifting space.
In the meantime, amid the loosened-lockdown dawn of summer, when football and horse racing are back, albeit with no crowds, and beaches are back, but too crowded, the search continues for entertainment, enlightenment and exercise at home and farther afield.
From behind his door, increasingly ajar, CHARLES HUTCHINSON makes these suggestions.
Drive-In Cinema parks up in York next month, but unlike in this poster, viewers will have to stay in, not on, their cars throughout each screening
Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema, Knavesmire, York, July 3 to 5
STATIC cinemas, no, but Boris Johnson’s Government has given the green light to drive-in cinemas with social distancing rules in place.
North Easterners Daisy Duke’s Drive-In Cinema have been quick off the mark to announce a Drive-In Saturday (one for David Bowie fans), and a Friday and Sunday too, from July 3 to 5.
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.
Four screenings a day are in store, with the film line-up taking in The Jungle Book, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, 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.
Oh, and if theatres are still closed come December, would there be any takers for a drive-in pantomime?
Rosy Rowley: Reprising her role in the 2012 York Mystery Plays as Mrs Noah in the York Radio Mystery Plays
York Radio Mystery Plays, on BBC Radio York, Sunday mornings throughout June
YORK Theatre Royal and BBC Radio York are collaborating to bring the York Mystery Plays to life on the airwaves on the Sunday Breakfast Show with Jonathan Cowap.
Working remotely from home, a cast of 19 community and professional actors has recorded four 15-minute instalments under the direction of Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.
After Adam And Eve and The Flood Part 1, the series continues with The Flood Part 2 this weekend and Moses And Pharaoh on June 28. Hear the earlier ones at bbc.co.uk/sounds.
York In Flood, 2019, taken by Museum Gardens, from Katherine-of-Yorkshire’s exhibition at Village Gallery, York
Galleries re-opening…
NO, not the big ones yet, such as York Art Gallery, but among those to announce the re-opening of doors in York this week are Simon Main’s Village Gallery, in Colliergate, and Ann Petherick’s Kentmere House Gallery, in Scarcroft Hill.
Village Gallery is presenting a photographic show by Instagrammer Katherine-of-Yorkshire until August 2. “Katherine regularly posts photographs on Instagram, mainly of York, and usually in black and white, using the camera on her phone to take the photos,” Simon says.
“She manages to convey a deep feeling of peace, even when documenting the major floods in York that happen all too regularly, as well as showing a different perspective of well-known places.”
Open by appointment only until further notice, Kentmere House is displaying A Life In Colour, Work from the Studio of Jack Hellewell, 1920-2000, including unframed pieces never seen before, to mark Hellewell’s centenary.
North York Moors, by Jack Hellewell, at the re-opened Kentmere House Gallery, York
Mother Shipton’s Pixie Village Trail, Knaresborough
HAVE you ever dreamt of stepping into an utterly enchanted realm, deep in the captivating woodland, filled with fairy rings and secret doorways, where pixies are waiting to play?
If so, at Mother Shipton’s you can tread carefully through the land of the woodland people and keep your eyes peeled as you follow the trail to see their tiny houses.
Visitors will be provided with a trail sheet to explore the natural woodland at their own pace. Please note, open to pre-booked car admissions only, this Pixie Village event will not include any confined spaces and the actors will not be interacting with visitors, in order to reduce large gatherings of crowds and physical contact.
Shed Seven: Rearranging two big outdoors concerts in Yorkshire for their 2021 diary
Seek out the good news
NO York Festival with Madness, Westlife and Lionel Richie at York Sports Club from tomorrow until Sunday. No revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s Just Between Ourselves opening at the SJT tonight for a summer run. No Ronan Keating: Twenty Twenty gig at York Barbican tomorrow.
However, one festival is going ahead, albeit in revised online form, namely the York Early Music Festival, from July 9 to 11, with York countertenor Iestyn Davies’s concert with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny as the stand-out.
Keating’s Twenty Twenty show will now be in Twenty Twenty One, on January 13 to be precise. Meanwhile, York’s Britpop alumni Shed Seven have re-arranged two 2020 outdoor concerts for next year, now playing Doncaster Racecourse post-racing on May 15 2021, rather than August 15 this summer, and headlining an all-Yorkshire bill at the Piece Hall, Halifax, on June 26 2021, instead of the same date this year.
The artwork for Bob Dylan’s new album, Rough And Rowdy, out tomorrow
And what about…
79-YEAR-OLD Bob Dylan’s first album of original songs in eight years, Rough And Rowdy Ways, out tomorrow, on Columbia. Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher and Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks’s solo debut A Quickening as further album recommendations. Spike Lee’s new Vietnam War film, Da 5 Bloods, streaming on Netflix. The Salisbury Poisonings, on BBC iPlayer, York actor Mark Addy among the cast. Talking Heads, Alan Bennett’s isolation monologues re-visited in Covid-19 times with two new additions, on BBC One from Tuesday.
Gardens at National Trust properties re-opening, such as Beningbrough Hall; bookings only. Val and Emma Carr’s Stanley & Ramona dinky coffee house, in Bishopthorpe Road, serving up coffee and cake again, hurrah.
Walks through the rhododendrons at Forestry England’s Wheldrake Wood and watching out for the tiny toads and frogs at the RSPB’s Fairburn Ings. Tony Bartholomew’s Forest 100: A Year In The Life online exhibition of Dalby Forest from spring 2019 to spring 2020 at forestryengland.uk
York countertenor Iestyn Davies: Performing at the revised 2020 York Early Music Festival on July 9. Picture: Benjamin Ealovega
