Hexham Piper’s Gathering – May 7th

My local piping event – the Hexham piper’s gathering is fast approaching. Session on Friday night in the Abbey undercroft (trad F pitch), group playing during the day on Saturday followed by an  evening concert and dance. There’ll be a follow up sesison at the Dipton Mill Pub on the Sunday but I don’t think I’ll mkae it this year.

Blankenheim Piping Course

As musical interests go – Northumbrian Piping is unsurprisingly fairly geographically limited …  to Northumberland.There are a fair number of pipers out there around the world and there a couple of annual gatherings in the US as well as a week long course in Germany.

25th-30th  April – the Blankenheim Bordunale is a fantastic event – French pipes, hurdy gurdy, song, dance as well as Northumbrian pipes. I met up with Ruprecht Niepold last year- he plays the cornemuse, a Baroque relative of the Northumbrian pipes. The plan is to play some duets together since we’re the instruments are both effectively in ‘old pitch’.

I always look forward to travelling there, the mix of languages is great and the people are a joy to be with. I also get to relearn the mazurka…

Chalk Giants are coming to Wall

The Chalk Giants is a shadow puppet show developed by a national renowned theatre company from Norfolk and is being put on as part of the Highlights Rural Touring programme. The story-line is based on Jack and the beanstalk – except the Giants were just minding their own business and Jack turns out to be a bit of a tear-away.

It’s on Saturday 5th March, the show starts at 6pm in Wall Village Hall and there will be a home made sweet stall for the children beforehand (and adults too I’m sure!).
Tickets are £4.50 (children) / £7 (adults) / £21 (family, 2+2) – and Humshaugh First School will be benefitting from the proceeds.

If you’ve already booked tickets – thank you very much! If not, contact us, we’d love to see you there.

Old Year’s Night 2010

It’s that time of year again – Old Year’s Night – my annual village concert party on the 30th December, traditional music, songs and stories. This year’s guests: David McCracken,  Beth Chamberlain, Graham Dick and I’ll be strapping the pipes on for a few tunes as well – Songs, Stories, Tunes & much Humour – marvellous.

Sure to be a sell-out once again! Contact me for tickets