Music

For over twenty-five years, Black Voices have captivated global audiences with their passionate performances. This sensational a cappella ensemble has developed a unique repertoire – spirituals, traditional African, Caribbean and English folk songs, jazz, gospel, pop and reggae – that has earned them world-wide recognition. Dartington audiences have taken them to their heart.

Carol Pemberton Music Director
Celia Wickham-Anderson
Evon Johnson-Elliot
Genevieve Sylva
Jennifer Wallace

GoldDust DJ Set!

Dust off your dancing shoes; GOLDDUST and DJ BILL, your favourite Boogie-Fueled Disco-Glitter-Glam merchants, are coming back to the Barrel House Ballroom… AS DJ’S!

for a one off Mid-Summer Mad Peng Ting!!!!

Open Session for players to join in or to sit and listen as you please.
In the back bar.

We’re very lucky to have five of Europe’s most celebrated jazz musicians, playing together exclusively in Dartingon’s relaxed and informal setting. We’re particularly delighted to welcome Alec Dankworth and Chris Batchelor to Dartington for the first time.

Chris Batchelor trumpet
Mark Lockheart saxophone
Steve Lodder piano
Alec Dankworth bass
Jon Scott percussion

Ric Byer – Roz Harding – Marcus Vergette

Three familiar ingredients with a new recipe.

Adventurous Jazz for the curious…

A tremendously rich programme from the youthful Gildas Quartet, to open Harrison Birtwistle’s residency with us this week. Purcell’s Chacony directly inspired the Chaconne variations in Britten’s second quartet, composed to celebrate Purcell’s 250th anniversary in 1945. Harrison Birtwistle – a huge admirer of Henry Purcell – wrote The Tree of Strings for the Arditti Quartet, alternating moments of total stillness with passages of great athleticism and rhythmic energy, recalling his time lived in the Hebrides.

‘Birtwistle’s The Tree of Strings – an evocation of what might have survived of a lost musical culture on the Hebridean island of Raasay – is starting to emerge as one of his finest recent achievements. It seems to reveal more mysteries and beauties with every performance.’ The Guardian

Purcell – Chacony in G minor arr. Britten
Britten – Quartet no.2 in C major Op.36
Harrison Birtwistle – The Tree of Strings

Christoper Jones violin
Gemma Sharples violin
Kay Stephen viola
Anna Menzies cello

A tremendously rich programme from the youthful Gildas Quartet, to open Harrison Birtwistle’s residency with us this week. Purcell’s Chacony directly inspired the Chaconne variations in Britten’s second quartet, composed to celebrate Purcell’s 250th anniversary in 1945. Harrison Birtwistle – a huge admirer of Henry Purcell – wrote The Tree of Strings for the Arditti Quartet, alternating moments of total stillness with passages of great athleticism and rhythmic energy, recalling his time lived in the Hebrides.

‘Birtwistle’s The Tree of Strings – an evocation of what might have survived of a lost musical culture on the Hebridean island of Raasay – is starting to emerge as one of his finest recent achievements. It seems to reveal more mysteries and beauties with every performance.’ The Guardian

Purcell – Chacony in G minor arr. Britten
Britten – Quartet no.2 in C major Op.36
Harrison Birtwistle – The Tree of Strings

Christoper Jones violin

Gemma Sharples violin

Kay Stephen viola

Anna Menzies cello

Folk players, singers and listeners are all welcome to join in or sit back for the informal folk playing session. Mostly instrumental with the occasional song thrown in.

‘Birtwistle is a towering figure in British music.’ New York Times

Joanna MacGregor talks to Sir Harrison Birtwistle, introducing his short, spicy chamber pieces to celebrate his 85th birthday. The concert – performed by a supergroup of soloists – opens in the Courtyard, with a tattoo for two trumpets and side drums, and continues with songs, short piano pieces, brass ensembles, with two of Harry’s favourite composers, Stavinsky and Dunstable.

Birtwistle – The Silk House Tattoo (in the Courtyard)
Birtwistle – The Message
Birtwistle – The Sadness of Komachi  
Stravinsky – Three Japanese Lyrics  
Birtwistle – Dance of the metro-gnome; Saraband: The King’s Farewell
Birtwistle – Three Settings of Lorine Naedecker
Stravinsky – Three Pieces for String Quartet
Dunstable – Hocquetus
Birtwistle – Hoquetus Irvineus
Birtwistle – 3 Settings of Celan
Birtwistle – Sonance 2000

Sarah Gabriel, Gillian Keith sopranos

Tom Randle tenor

Jernej Albreht clarinets

Lydia Hillerudh cello

Paul Archibald, Lucy Humphris trumpets

Brett Baker trombone

Joseph Havlat, Stephen de Pledge piano

Gildas Quartet

Dartington Brass Ensemble

Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer created an unforgettably powerful masterpiece, changing film language forever. Renée Jeanne Falconetti’s portrayal of Joan is in a class of its own – outside the realms of acting – and is still regarded as the single greatest performance in the history of cinema.

‘It is the face that everyone remembers: that unstinting close-up of the tear-riven visage of French actress Falconetti, maintaining agonised composure as her Joan of Arc is consumed by flames before a braying mob. Echoed countless times on camera – not least in Sinéad O’Connor’s video for Nothing Compares 2 U – it’s a scene that rewrote how faces could be explored and exploited on screen. The last silent film by Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer, it largely eschewed traditional master shots for a dazzling range of expressive, character-probing close-ups: no historical biopic has ever felt quite so unnervingly intimate.’ Guy Lodge

Sarah Gabriel voice

Mark Lockheart saxophones and electronics

Joanna MacGregor piano and organ

Jon Scott percussion

Matthew Fairclough sound projection

The Black Bird Collective returns with their splendid Open Mic Nights in the intimate setting of The Library Bar at The Totnes Brewing Company downstairs from The Barrel House Ballroom.

8pm – 11pm / Free Entry…

“It’s all about the music and bringing people together for good times!”

Bar open at 5pm / Open Mic starts at 8pm

If you would like to book a slot in advance please message The Black Bird Collective.

We will have free slots available on the night. If you’d like to play please come and put your name on the list as early as possible on the night, as these nights have been very busy so far.

We will always try to give everyone who comes and wants to play a slot but if we can’t fit everyone in on the night, we will make sure you get to play the next one. If you are travelling from outside Totnes and want to make sure you can get a slot, please message us beforehand.

Original material is positively encouraged at this intimate and friendly open mic night.

Please show your support for all the artists performing on the night!

This open mic is being run and organised by The Black Bird Collective with Christian Murison on the mic and Steve Rogers on the sound. Poster designed by Matthew Rochford.

Remember to let your friends know and please invite people via the facebook event page… www.facebook.com/events/1304041993078898

Piazzolla wrote music of dazzling intensity and ferocity, encapsulated in his Tango-Études. Three Brazilian song arrangements – romantic, sunny and love-infused – separate these from Joanna MacGregor’s volcanic, celebrated arrangements of six of Piazzolla’s tangos, finishing with Libertango.

Piazzolla – Tango-Études
Lobo/Moraes – Canto Triste
Tom Jobim – Insensatez
Baden Powell/Moraes – Canto de Osshana
Piazzolla/MacGregor – Six Tangos

Joanna MacGregor, the Artistic Director of Dartington International Summer School & Festival, is one of the world’s most innovative musicians, appearing as a concert pianist, curator, and collaborator. Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music and Professor of the University of London, she has performed in more than eighty countries.

‘MacGregor’s verve, energy and astounding technique are always at the service of the music and never vice versa.  Her ability to inhabit so many sound worlds with the same intensity and commitment is profoundly impressive’ BBC Classical Review

Byron Wallen, Trumpet
Craig Milverton, Piano
Al Swainger, Double Bass
Coach York, Drums

The last time Bryon graced the Arts Centre stage was as part of the Jean Toussaint Quintet last December, where he was, as ever, amazing – almost the star of the show!

This time he is the star of the show, albeit in the stellar company of the South West’s rhythm section par excellence. This is likely to be another of those gigs where you have to pinch yourself and ask, “am I really in deepest Devon, and not in Ronnie Scott’s in London or the Blue Note club in New York?”

Students of the Advanced Opera and Conducting Courses

Tom Randle Peter Quint

Jonathan Lakeland Palmer opera coach

Graeme Jenkins conductor

Dartington Festival Orchestra

Composer – Benjamin Britten
Librettist – Myfanwy Piper

Based on Henry James’s chilling novella, Britten’s intense chamber opera tells the story of a young governess desperate to protect her children, Miles and Flora, from evil. The culmination of the two-week opera and conducting courses, led by the internationally-renowned Graeme Jenkins and staring Tom Randle as the sinister Peter Quint. Semistaged with surtitles.

Roll up, roll up: Joanna MacGregor leads over a hundred musicians in Cage’s famously anarchic 1967 music happening, in and around Dartington’s Great Hall. Come and participate in Musicircus, where every performer and every kind of music coexist in glorious cacophony. Any number of musicians, willing to perform simultaneously, can take part.

‘Art is a process set in motion by a group of people. You won’t hear anything: you’ll hear everything.’ John Cage

All musicians, at any level, are welcome to be part of this performance – no rehearsals are necessary, but we will start and finish at definite times. You can play (or read) John Cage, Erik Satie, graphic scores, music and words of your own choice – or simply improvise. Dancers, poets, actors and visual artists are also welcome. Colourful circus clothing is voluntary.

The celebrated Neil Brand introduces his own score for this vivid silent film of Dickens’ novel, directed by Frank Lloyd and starring the brilliant seven-year old Jackie Coogan (The Kid) as Oliver and Lon Chaney, ‘the man of a thousand faces,’ as Fagin. “Sometimes it seems Charles Dickens must have written for the movies. Who can resist that pathetic scene: ‘Please, sir, I want some more’? The picture of little Oliver with his bowl held out for more gruel has remained as iconic of humanitarian liberalism throughout the twentieth century, as it was of reform in Dickens’s time.” Silent Volume   Don’t miss: Neil Brand introducing film and music students in the Barn Theatre Film with Music: The Passion of Saint Joan (1928) Mark Lockheart leading Jazzworks John Cage’s Musicircus   Neil Brand has been a silent film accompanist for over 30 years, regularly in London at the Barbican BFI National Film Theatres, throughout the UK and at film festivals a around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, America, Israel, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, and, in Italy, the Bologna, Aosta, Bergamo and Pordenone festivals where he has inaugurated the School of Music and Image to teach up-and-coming young pianists about silent film accompaniment. He was appointed Visiting Professor of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music this year. Neil now has a very fruitful relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra which has resulted performances of his acclaimed orchestral score for Hitchcock’s silent Blackmail, Asquith’s silent Underground, released to great acclaim theatrically and on Blu-Ray/DVD by the BFI, and Chaplin’s Easy Street. Gramophone talks to Neil about improvisation and film

The celebrated Neil Brand introduces his own score for this vivid silent film of Dickens’ novel, directed by Frank Lloyd and starring the brilliant seven-year old Jackie Coogan (The Kid) as Oliver and Lon Chaney, ‘the man of a thousand faces,’ as Fagin. “Sometimes it seems Charles Dickens must have written for the movies. Who can resist that pathetic scene: ‘Please, sir, I want some more’? The picture of little Oliver with his bowl held out for more gruel has remained as iconic of humanitarian liberalism throughout the twentieth century, as it was of reform in Dickens’s time.” Silent Volume

Eli hosts an Open Session on each other Thursday welcoming friends or guests, to either take over the Open Mic or to join in the session atmosphere at the end. If you want to come along and join in just come early and speak to Eli about a slot.

Commissioned especially for pianist Stephen De Pledge, seven New Zealand composers have written pieces inspired by Bach’s Partita no. 3 in A minor. In a series of fascinating three-way conversations between the composers, pianist and Bach himself – the performance includes Bach’s original partita – we hear this 18th-century musical form reimagined for the 21st century, with wit and lively imagination.

J.S. Bach Partita no.3 in A minor BWV 827

Bach Fantasia: Leonie Holmes – Fantasia

Bach Allemande: Chris Gendall – Monolithe Allemand

Bach Corrente: Christopher Norton – Corrente

Bach Sarabande: Alex Taylor – Sarabande, Inertia Study

Bach Burlesca: Juliet Kiri Palmer – Burl

Bach Scherzo: Celeste Oram – $cher.zo (two one four-hundred and thirteen dollars forty)

Bach Gigue: Helen Bowater –Gigue – a pataphor: that which occurs when a lizard’s tail has grown so long it breaks off and forms a new lizard

Our brass students blow the roof off, with a colourful programme of British composers.

Paul Archibald, Brett Baker and Students of the Brass Ensemble Course

Paul Patterson – Count Down Op.28
Richard Rodney Bennett – Flowers of the Forest
Paul Lovatt-Cooper – The Hampshire Suite

FREE – book tickets in advance

Exciting new work created by this week’s Advanced Composition students and introduced by their course director, Sir Harrison Birtwistle. Several short, new works receive their premiere, played by the world-class Gildas Quartet, trumpeter Lucy Humphris and Trio Tritium.

FREE – book tickets in advance
Proceeds from a retiring collection will be used to support Summer School bursaries.

We’re extraordinarily lucky to have one of the world’s greatest living composers, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, joining us this year in Dartington. A leading European figure in contemporary music, his seminal works have combined a modernist aesthetic with emotional impact; he takes his inspiration from contemporary art, and rituals of classical mythology and pre-history. Harrison Birtwistle was born in Accrington in 1934 and studied clarinet and composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music. In 1960 he sold his clarinets to devote his efforts to composition, and travelled to Princeton as a Harkness Fellow where he completed the opera Punch and Judy. This work, together with Verses for Ensembles and The Triumph of Time, firmly established Birtwistle as a leading voice in British music. Important large-scale compositions are the operas The Minotaur, Gawain, The Second Mrs Kong and The Last Supper, the concertos Panic, Antiphonies and Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, as well as the orchestral scores Earth Dances, Exody and The Shadow of Night.

Fun for all the family, get them dancing shoes on for our Family Disco
£5 per family, pay on the door
Hot food, cakes and drinks will also be on sale

Artistic Director Joanna MacGregor celebrates her last ever Summer School concert with Beethoven’s jubilant Choral Fantasy, a mini piano concerto with stirring choir. Her performance partner is the celebrated opera and choral conductor Stephen Barlow, visiting Dartington for the first time.

Before Beethoven comes Tippett’s majestic spirituals, and our brand new choral commission from the marvellous composer Eleanor Alberga, setting poetry by Alice Oswald.

Eleanor Alberga – Awed light its chant entrances (premiere)
Tippett – Five Spirituals from A Child of Our Time: Steal Away; Nobody Knows; Go Down, Moses; By and By; Deep River
Beethoven – Choral Fantasy Op.80

Stephen Barlow conductor

Joanna MacGregor piano

Soloists from the Advanced Opera course

Dartington Choir

Dartington Festival Orchestra

Stephen Barlow was a boy chorister at Canterbury Cathedral‚ and studied at Trinity College‚ Cambridge (as Organ Scholar) and Guildhall School of Music and Drama‚ under Vilem Tausky. He was Artistic Director of the Buxton Festival 2011-2018‚ and his recent projects include La Cenerentola (Staatsoper‚ Stuttgart)‚ Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Beijing)‚ Die Walküre Peter Grimes‚ Falstaff‚ Norma (Grange Park Opera)‚ and Otello (Birmingham Opera Company). He co-founded Opera 80‚ and was resident conductor at English National Opera. Engagements abroad include Vancouver Opera, San Francisco Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and Opera Australia. He has conducted most of the world’s major orchestras. Recordings include Joseph James’ Requiem with Sumi Jo and his own Rainbow Bear (with his wife‚ Joanna Lumley‚ as narrator); he has conducted the première of his opera King in Canterbury Cathedral. As a pianist‚ he has recorded the complete songs of Butterworth‚ Delius and Quilter.

Coffee Couture Totnes, The Town Mill, Coronation Rd TQ9 5DE
8pm, Friday, August 23rd 2019 Online £4, Door £5
www.eventbrite.com

Line up:
Gilbert Gabriel: Vocals, Guitar and Keyboards.
Alice Night: Vocals and Guitar.
Amy Edwards: Cellos and Vocals.
Petya Halse: Sax, Flute and Vocals.

Gilbert Gabriel has worked with David Gilmour, PM Dawn, Massive Attack vocalist
(Shara Nelson) & was signed to Prince’s management.

Dreampop-Chillout-Psychedelic

Plus Support
Kelly & Mariella

www.everdreamrecords.com

The music of Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and Romania played with passion and soul from the heart of eastern europe…

rtington Big Band Final Party Night: Stonking Big Band and dancing! Join us for our annual swing–jive, led by the indefatigable Steve Dummer.

Skylark add vocal harmony and a bluesy twist to traditional and contemporary songs from America, Sweden and the British Isles. Featuring vocals, fiddle, flute, piano, guitar, mandolin and percussion.

You all know the routine by now …..

Bring along some records –

Chalk your name up on the board –

Wait your turn –

Have a few drinkies –

Have a wiggle –

Repeat as required 🙂

Hot Club of Stonehouse bring the gypsy jazz of 1930s Paris bals musettes to present day Blighty – sultry, insouciant & SWINGING, their authentic Hot Club sound is uniquely anointed with the balmy and incomparable vocals of the divine Miss Becky Brine…

Totnes Irish Session at the Bay Horse. Jigs, reels and all that. All musicians welcome.

All inclusive singing session for all-comers.

Come along and join in. – Voices only…

GROUNDWATER RELIEF is a Devon based charity providing technical support to organisations engaged in supplying water to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. We have a membership of over 270 technical experts based around the world, who work with us to help organisations construct and manage groundwater infrastructure in a professional, responsible, cost effective and sustainable way, whilst engaging local authorities, companies and institutions. These members join us, voluntarily, to utilise their skills, knowledge and experience to support people who lack access to safe and affordable water. Groundwater Relief aims to prevent and relieve poverty and sickness and promote the good health of people anywhere in the world, by developing their own and their water providers capacity, to sustainably develop and use groundwater resources.

OUR WORK: Since August 2017, almost one million Rohingya people have fled a brutal campaign of violence from Myanmar across the border into the Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh. This refugee camp, now the largest in the world, is placing a huge strain on local resources and the surrounding communities, and the need to understand the availability of groundwater for the future is vast. Groundwater Relief is currently implementing a comprehensive monitoring programme to advise the government, local institutions and the global sector on the development of a sustainable water supply strategy to ensure access to safe water for the refugees and their surrounding hosts, in the coming years.

FUNDRAISING FOR THE FORGOTTEN MILLION: We invite you to join us, support your local charity, and enjoy a day and evening of jolly good fun in Totnes on the 31st August 2019. During the day we will have lots of children’s activities, open mic sessions, talks from the field and much more to see and do. In the evening we welcome you to come along and have fun!

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
10am – 5pm – Thai Street Food, Open Mic Sessions, Local Beer and Cider, Fun activities, Talks from the Field and much more……

5pm – 10pm – Food, drinks, live music from Skedaddle and a Silent Disco from Devons’ infamous Silent Event Hero. PLUS an opportunity to enter into our raffle with fantastic prizes.

COME ALONG and join us when you can, donate where you can and spread the word how you can, to support Groundwater Relief and their work in Bangladesh. All money raised goes towards ensuring the sustainability of water supply for the Forgotten Million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

Follow us on Facebook for more information.

Generating Steam Heat returns to Angel Studios in Totnes on Saturday 31st August with a special show featuring the first live band to be invited to play one of our nights…

FUSEA are one of the best new bands we’ve heard in the three years we’ve been doing Generating Steam Heat’s radio show-so good that we had to put them on at GSH. Think prime time Cure, Psychedelic Furs or your fave 80’s synth or alternative band (check out ‘Medicine’ or ‘Lights’ on Spotify, Bandcamp etc, for proof-they’re that good!!) We think they could go on to be pretty damn popular so catch them in Totnes in an intimate GSH setting while you can…

Alongside FUSEA we have DJ sets from Coach Station Unicorn, Suki Sioux and double decking tag team Ali Up and DJ MAJR playing short and snappy dream pop, shoegaze, punk, post punk, goth, proto punk and darkwave sets.

We will also have a mystery art installation by our in house creative guru/provocateur Sarah Vaci, new vinyl for sale from Weird Beard and Dirty Filthy Records, a fanzine give away from the cool kids at ‘Black, White and Read All Over’, GSH badges, cult films and craft beer from New Lion Brewery (including our own Generating Steam Heat bottled beer if there’s any left!) and Barnaby’s Brewhouse alongside a full bar with all your fave drinks-phew!

Due to he compact and bijou nature of our lovely venue and the extra space required for the band this event is ticketed to ensure we don’t get over crowded. TICKETS ARE LIMITED and once they’re gone they’re gone.

We are expecting this show to sell out and can not guarantee entry on the door without a ticket…Don’t miss out!

Get your ticket by either messaging Generating Steam Heat on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or from We Got Tickets:

Details to follow…

🎶Let us take you to the place, where membership’s a smiling face, brush shoulders with the stars, where strangers take you by the hand, and welcome you to wonderland, from beneath their panamas…🎶

Yes that’s right, this August ‘it’s getting hot in here’ as Guilty Pleasures returns to The Barrel House Ballroom and invites you to join them for the ultimate beach party, Club Tropicana style!