An exciting and unusual evening combining the awesome talents of international guitarist Rick Payne with the relevant and irreverent verse of the star of the roaring boy world of performance poetry, Peter Wyton.

Slide guitar maestro Rick Payne’s performances have taken him to prime time TV, to festivals and theatres throughout UK and on tour to Europe, USA, Scandinavia and the Greek Islands.

Reviewers have described his sound as: heart wrenching and passionate, delicate and scorching, seriously brilliant, totally absorbing and spellbindingly evocative with raw and fiery vocals to match.

Peter Wyton has twice been nominated for the Forward Book Of Poetry, appearing in it in 1997 alongside Seamus Heaney, U. A. Fanthorpe and Ruth Padel. He has appeared at events as diverse as Cheltenham Literature Festival and Glastonbury, Radio 4 and Oxford TV delighting everyone from formalists to the avant-garde. Reviewed as; ready with irony, riddled with word play, acute with enquiry and a real writer with something to say; often something uniquely skewed. He writes with economy and wit.

Each is widely known as a solo artist. As the duo Rhythm And Muse they mix their solo work with collaborations of both arts. The music encompasses Celtic, traditional American folk, mediaeval, Spanish and of course blues and ragtime. The poetry ranges from the reflective to the hilariously funny and always has a cutting edge.

‘Just brilliant – nicely put together, lots of laughter with honest and well thought out perceptions of life intertwined with some great music. This partnership is destined for much higher things. ‘The Lowdown’

http://www.rickpayne.co.uk/

www.myspace.com/peterwytonpoet

Tickets available from the Three Choirs Festival Office – 0845 652 1823

July sees Open Air Theatre, Gloucester Carnival & the World Together Festival, whilst August includes Volleyball, Witches & Wizards, Seaside Fun and a celebration of Jamaican Independence Day.

Find out more at www.thecityofgloucester.co.uk/site/whats-on/summer-in-gloucester

Naunton Midsummer Proms

The beautiful village of Naunton, set in the heart of the Cotswolds, will again be hosting a truly memorable summer’s evening.  On 19^th June Naunton’s recreation ground will be transformed into a ‘last night of the proms’ style concert featuring the London Gala Chamber Orchestra conducted by James Morgan and including the renowned soprano Juliette Pochin. The evening will finish with a firework finale.  All proceeds will go towards the Light Dragoons Charitable Trust and the Naunton Village Hall. 

A stage will be set up in the centre of the ground where Juliette and the orchestra will perform various pieces such as Handel’s ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba;’ Bizet’s ‘March of the Toreadors’ from Carmen and the more familiar ‘I could have danced all night’ from My Fair Lady. More traditional proms music, when the audience can join, will also be performed including Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and, of course, Land of Hope and Glory.

“I am really looking forward to this event,” said conductor James Morgan. For me this illustrates what country living is all about.  Performing in a setting such as this is a big highlight for me and is definitely different to my usual itinerary!” It is amazing to think that the village residents pull together in a huge effort to create this fabulous evening.”

The performance will start at 8pm but gates will open at 6.30 when those attending are welcome to arrive with picnics and singing voices at the ready.  Tickets cost £20 (in advance) for adults and £5 for children. They do get sold very quickly and can be bought by calling 07949 246876 or 01451 850787.

“The undisputed heavyweight champions of ‘comedy pop” (Robert Spellman, Daily Express)

Appearing at Cheltenham’s Bacon Theatre on 7^th May, the show features diabolical mayhem from the largest number of Bonzos still playing together anywhere on the surface of the earth. Born in a distant art school past somewhere in the sixties, Three Bonzos And A Piano unleash their Bonzo Dog classics with energetic zip and palaver. Ali Baba’s Camel, Hunting Tigers Out In India, Big Shot, Trouser Press, The Sheik of Araby,  Monster Mash, Can Blue Men Sing The Whites?, The Head Ballet and many, many more – including some great new numbers.

Robots, smoke, unsuitable medical technology, ancient theatrical props, the kitchen sink and the audience (you get to join-in!) all combine to re-create the atmosphere of those formative years of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.

Book your tickets at the Bacon Theatre.

www.threebonzosandapiano.co.uk

Blondie have announced a West Country date for the summer with an appearance at Westonbirt Arboretum on 20th June, as part of Forestry Commission Live Music, where bands perform in beautiful woodland locations around the country.

One of the most significant bands of the popular music era, Blondie emerged from New York’s celebrated new wave scene producing innovative music and scoring major hits worldwide with rock/disco, reggae and hip-hop songs. Fronted by the iconic Debbie Harry, their groundbreaking material brought them a stash of hit singles including ‘Denis’, ‘Picture This’, ‘Rapture’, ‘Sunday Girl’ and ‘Hanging On The Telephone’. Few acts can match their 20 year span of No 1 hits that includes ‘Heart Of Glass’, ‘Atomic’, ‘Call Me’, ‘The Tide Is High’ and ‘Maria’. Classic recordings like ‘Plastic Letters’, ‘Parallel Lines’ and ‘Eat to The Beat’ have contributed to their 40 million + album sales to date. Blondie will release a new album, their first in six years, this spring.

Tickets cost £33.00 (subject to booking fee) go on sale at 9.00am Friday 12th February from the Forestry Commission box office tel 01842 814612 or buy online at www.forestry.gov.uk/music

 We’re thrilled to announce that UK folk/punk king Frank Turner is to visit Gloucester for an exclusive live show in the Spiegeltent on New Year’s Eve.

The former Million Dead frontman has been amassing an army of dedicated fans since going it alone in 2005, and his brand of honest, from-the-heart songwriting, catchy melodies and punk passion have seen him become one of the UK’s most distinctive musical exports.
Three years of writing and touring and hard work all clicked at Reading and Leeds Festivals 2008, where inside packed out tents, heaving with adoring fans and intrigued passers-by, Frank led a mass sing-a-long with a stirring set that not only sparked the interest of the British mainstream but resonated in the US as a wealth of American punk bands watched approvingly from the sidelines.

The same year came his second album, ‘Love, Ire & Song’, picked up by just about every self-respecting alternative DJ on the music scene, plus a few of the mainstream ones. The gigs got bigger, and Uncle Sam came knocking. Frank performed at the famous SXSW Festival back in March, signed to legendary US punk label Epitaph, and is now doing really rather well over there as well, don’t you know.

His third studio album, ‘Poetry Of The Deed’, was released in September and saw Frank in rockier mode, tearing up the charts and bringing his music to that wider audience he’s deserved for so long. His UK and European tour was a sell out, and we’re thrilled to be welcoming him to perform an intimate show to a packed Spiegeltent on New Year’s Eve 2009, with special guests, surprises and much, much more.

£25 advance + booking fee, doors 8pm, over 14s, tickets from www.bristolticketshop.co.uk.

If you like good music, you need to be at the Spiegel Sessions on the 16th Decemeber.
The excellent ‘Stornoway‘ will be rocking the tent! Click image for more info.

Coming to Gloucestershire for the first time ever- and for a limited period only… the stunning Belgian Spiegeltent! The tent is an ornate, early twentieth century travelling venue dressed with wood panelling, mirrors, stained glass and velvet-lined seating booths, and is definitely sure to be the talk of the town this Christmas! The tent will be open for business as a cafe-bar by day, and as Christmas party, show and concert venue by night.

Cotswolds Culture is pleased to announce the following Speigel Sessions:

30th November – The Damned

16th December – Stornoway

17th December – Heart Club Classic presents Abba Party with Abba Gold

18th December – The Wurzels

Full details and tickets for the gigs will be available online at www.christmasingloucester.co.uk from the 11th November.

Between them, Welsh baritone Mark Evans and soprano Elizabeth Donovan have sung at all the major Opera Houses and concert venues in the UK (including 75,000 people at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff), Europe, The Far East and the United States.  Having sung with the likes of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Placido Domingo, with the English National Opera, the Welsh National Opera and at the Royal Opera House, the two are firmly established on the international stage.

In this new show ‘OperaXposed’ Welsh baritone Mark Evans and soprano Elizabeth Donovan brings the highest calibre performers in the operatic world into the local community to give you an evening of your favourite operatic and musical moments from Bizet to Andrew Lloyd Webber.  Told and performed in a passionate, charming and humorous way that cannot fail to convert anyone to the magical world of opera.

Tickets: £14.00 (£12.00 concessions) on door from the Box Office on 01453 760900 or online from www.stroud.gov.uk/subrooms.

To coincide and as part of 2009’s Severn Project, live performances of the poem have been set to voices and music by Stroud-based theatre group Taurus Voice, with music by   by Pete Rosser. 

An incredible place, the Severn.  Britain’s longest river, was named ‘Sabrina’ by the Romans and is home to Britain’s longest tidal wave.  Visitors these days head for Gloucester Docks or the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust at Slimbridge to encounter the atmosphere, history or wildlife of the area.