Events - What's New?

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2nd Aylsham Festival of Dance Music and Song 7th & 8th September 2018

• Norfolk

STOP PRESS! Holt Ridge Morris and Aylsham Town Council are pleased to bring you the second AYLSHAM FESTIVAL OF DANCE, MUSIC AND SONG ON 7th AND 8th SEPTEMBER 2018.

Planning for the second Aylsham Festival is now almost complete. Venues and artists are booked, dancers of all different genres are cleaning their dance shoes (or painting their toenails), singers are going through their repertoire and musicians are exercising their fingers all in preparation for another great day in Aylsham!

The event 'sings off' on FRIDAY with a FREE FOLK NIGHT at 8pm in Aylsham Town Hall, NR11 6EL hosted by the one and only Geoff Roberts and his Flying Folk!

On SATURDAY the Market Place in Aylsham comes alive with FREE daytime DANCE EVENTS including Egyptian dance, English Dance, Morris dancing, French traditional dance, Balkan dance and Norfolk Step Dancing and, as if that wasn't enough, Broadland Ukuleles will also be giving a FREE concert.

Artists will be performing in the Conservatory, Biddy's Tearoom and the Unicorn at various times during the day with free concerts outside the Unicorn and the Drill Hall during the afternoon.
A Longsword workshop is to be held in the Drill Hall and there will be a Ukulele workshop in the Library for anyone wanting to learn or even just have a taster.

The Festival will finish with TWO SEPARATE SATURDAY NIGHT CONCERTS in the Town Hall
by local personality and renowned melodeon maestro TONY HALL, 7.30pm.
followed by the supremely talented singer/song writer/guitarist MARTIN SIMPSON, 9pm.

Come along for a great day out! Enjoy the music, song and dance – even participate in the workshops and join us for the evening concerts.
For further information - https://www.facebook.com/AylshamFestivalDMS/

For Concert Tickets - contact Aylsham Town Hall tel: 01263 733354, or purchased online at : https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/aylsham-town-council

TONY HALL, 7.30pm £7.00, and MARTIN SIMPSON, 9pm £20.00 (OR BOTH FOR an excellent £22.50).

 

Below is A REVIEW OF LAST YEAR'S EVENT to 'whet your whistle'!

Friday 8th and Saturday 9th September 2017 saw a new Folk venture launched by Aylsham Town Council in North East Norfolk - billed as a Morris/Folk Weekend - AYLSHAM FESTIVAL OF DANCE, MUSIC AND SONG will become a regular event in the County's Folk calendar at the end of the summer holidays, after such a successful debut.

Read more: 2nd Aylsham Festival of Dance Music and Song 7th & 8th September 2018

Julia Clifford - Katie Howson

Katie Howson, ex-Director of The East Anglian Traditional Music Trust, is currently undertaking a research project into the life and music of Julia Clifford, an important traditional fiddle player, originally from Kerry but a resident of East Anglia in the later years of her life. Katie is looking for information anyone has about Julia.

Julia Clifford was a wonderful - and very influential - fiddle player from east Kerry who lived in England for most of her life. After the issue of several LPs, in particular The Star Above the Garter in 1969 and the Topic series in 1977, the music played by Julia, her brother Denis Murphy and accordion player Johnny O'Leary helped to define a style now known as Sliabh Luachra.
Within months of the issue of those albums, Julia moved to Norfolk and the last twenty years of her life and music have been undocumented until now. Anybody wishing to know a bit more about Julia Clifford is recommended to visit the Rushy Mountain website https://rushymountain.com/2016/04/22/julia-clifford/

Clive Gregson & Liz Simcock

Saturday 19th May Canopy Theatre, Hungate Church Beccles

Acclaimed singer/songwriters Clive Gregson & Liz Simcock first toured together in 2015 in a series of shows performing songs from the Clive Gregson & Christine Collister back catalogue. The tour was a resounding success, so Clive and Liz decided to keep the partnership going and in October 2017 they released Underwater Dancing, a CD of 14 brand new Clive Gregson songs

They undertook a very successful and well received tour in support of the album in autumn 2017 and will be embarking on the next leg of that tour in early summer 2018, bringing them to the Canopy Theatre at Hungate Church Beccles on Saturday 19^th May at 8.00 p.m.

Photo Sara Porter

Read more: Clive Gregson & Liz Simcock

Hadleigh French weekend

Hadleigh Folk and Acoustic Music Nights hosted another weekend of French music and dance form 6th - 8th April, attracting well over 100 people from all parts of the country. Our main guests, La Chavannée, have been responsible for some of the best interpretations of traditional music from Central France for the last 50 years.

 

Read more: Hadleigh French weekend

Tony Hall's Folk Band Night moves to new venue

From April, Tony Hall's Folk Band Night will move from the Duke of Wellington to The Reindeer, Dereham Road,NR2 4AY.

They will be playing every week on wednesdays and as before, this is a listening session (not joining in)

(known formerly as The Von Krapp Family Band)