The first place that events usually get listed is at wegottickets.com/ashburtonarts. Sometimes they get listed there before they appear below. You can also book tickets there (+10% booking fee) or email boxoffice@ashburtonarts.org.uk to reserve and pay on the door (cash or card). See Access, Tickets & Finding Us for more about why there are three ticket prices, plus other useful info about coming to events at Ashburton Arts Centre. To be kept up to date with everything going on at Ashburton Arts Centre, join our mailing list.
May 2024
’Oss Gals and Morris Men: Folk Reimagined and Retold: Talk and Film: Way of the MorrisSaturday 4 May 2024 at 2:00 PM
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Multi-award-winning hip hop three-piece whose unique blend of beatboxing, off the cuff freestyling and genre-spanning music has created a live show quite unlike any other on the scene today. Winners of both the Exposure Music Award’s “Best UK Urban Act” and the EatMusic Radio Award’s “Best Live Act”, they’ve shared the stage with Wu Tang Clan, Dizzee Rascal, Kelis, Rag N Bone Man, Example, Lethal Bizzle, The Wailers, Jurassic 5, Sugarhill Gang, KRS One, De La Soul, MF Doom, and Souls Of Mischief. Always extraordinary!
hKippers
Saturday 4 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Formed in 1987 by Stephen Warbeck (Oscar winner for his Shakespeare In Love score), the hKippers play, as they call it, ‘Stupid World Music’; bizarre lyrics about fish, hats, plaster, beer, cowboys and more fish set to a tight up-beat, klezmatic Euro-jazz-folk groove combining flights of inspired soloing and melodies your children will sing in the car home. The Bonzos Go Womad! Staggeringly surreal, brilliant fun, the music is wild and sure to get people dancing while the lyrics and musicianship will keep you entertained. These are top musicians (plus a TV soap star) having fun!
Workshop: Hedge Morris with Lucy Wright
Sunday 5 May 2024 at 11:00 AM
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Hedge morris dancing is for those of us who don’t have, or can’t be with a group of morris siblings on May morning, but who still feel the call to dance up the sun! You can dance anywhere: an idyllic rural clearing, the steps to a block of flats, or in your backyard…
FitkinWall Harpland
Sunday 5 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Internationally-renowned harp and electronica duo FitkinWall follow threads of migration, loss and longing. Graham Fitkin has created enigmatic and mesmerising new versions of Gaelic song, fiddle and pipe tunes for Ruth’s three harps: the sitar-like Renaissance bray harp, the beautiful medieval Gaelic wire harp (clàrsach) and the Scottish lever harp. Ancient aural sources mix with technology creating something beautiful; dark folk moods transform into soaring fast-paced music. From the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh and Glastonbury Festivals to Spiral Hall Tokyo, Aula Magna Rome and tours in Iceland, Sweden and Italy, now Ashburton.
Exhibition: About a Lovely Tree
Monday 6 May 2024 - Sunday 26 May 2024 at 10:30 AM
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Exhibition About a Lovely Tree
Joanna Eden and Craig Milverton - An Oscar For Ella
Monday 6 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Jazz greats Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald met at ‘Jazz at the Philharmonic’ – they were a natural pairing, a legend was born. This tribute includes Tenderly, Stomping at the Savoy, Dream a little Dream, Lush Life and many more classics. Joanna and Craig are two British jazz greats, and this will be a wonderful night.
Terra Invisus (London-based contemporary music trio)
Sunday 12 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Terra Invisus is a London-based contemporary music trio, dedicated to pushing musical and sonic boundaries through free improvisation, and the performance of new works.
These musicians, “explore the combination of their diverse musical styles to curate unique live performances and collaborations. Terra Invisus debut album, ‘Visions’, was released in April 2024, featuring new commissions from emerging UK composers.
Boo Hewerdine
Monday 13 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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For over 30 years Boo Hewerdine has been considered one of the UK’s finest singer-songwriters. As lead singer of seminal band, The Bible through to his subsequent solo work and long-time collaboration with the incredible Eddi Reader he has become something of a national treasure. He is in demand as a writer, producer and performer. Over a hundred of his songs have been covered by the likes of KD Lang, Kris Drever, Chris Difford, Heidi Talbot and Hannah Rarity. His last album ‘Before’ was recorded with supreme Danish multi- instrumentalist Gustaf Ljunggren. It garnered multiple five star reviews.
Jack Badcock
Monday 20 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Singer and guitarist, Jack Badcock is a veteran performer, having toured extensively on four continents, predominantly but not exclusively as frontman and founding member of renowned world-folk band Dallahan. A previous finalist in the BBC Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award, his 2021 EP, The Driftwood Project was nominated for Original Work of the Year at the BBC Scots Music Awards and in 2022 he was selected by Celtic Connections to write and perform an hour of original music with a full band for the prestigious New Voices commission at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall.
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Friday 31 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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See Access, Tickets & Finding Us for more about why there are three ticket prices, plus other useful info about coming to events at Ashburton Arts Centre: getting here, parking, loos, PA tickets, etc.
Old Baby Mackerel
Friday 31 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Book here now: £15 full price • £10 or £7 if you prefer – please pay what you can*
“Old Baby Mackerel plays high-energy, foot-stomping bluegrass featuring some of the UK’s best bluegrass musicians. Be prepared to be transported back in time to the early 20th century and across the Atlantic to North America where songs dramatized the small-town fascination with locomotion, religion and the veneration of whisky and bootleg liquor. Gathered around a single condenser microphone in the true bluegrass style, the sounds of banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle and double bass blend lightning-fast rhythm, virtuosic solos and evocative harmonies to get knees bouncing and elbows swinging.
In the last four years Old Baby Mackerel has been featured on three different BBC radio stations including 6 Music with Cerys Matthews, played Glastonbury Festival festival twice (2019 and 2022) and sold out venues across the UK including London’s Green Note, The Acorn in Penzance and Seaford Little Theatre in Sussex. In 2024 they completed a sold out tour of Dorset and have played headline slots at Purbeck (2022) and Priddy (2023) folk festivals, the Northern Irish, Cornish, Welsh, East Anglian and Swiss bluegrass festivals, at venues and festivals all over the UK and Ireland as well as Belgium, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal and Thailand.”
Radio Appearances:
Bluegrass Special: American Beauty Live from Omagh Bluegrass Festival (from 15:57): https://on.soundcloud.com/uhhvX
BBC 6 Music by Cerys Matthews – Glastonbury festival session (penultimate track) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018df0
BBC Radio Cornwall interview with David White: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fprjkv
Articles in the Press:
Bluegrass beyond borders in Bluegrass Today, by Lee Zimmerman:
https://bluegrasstoday.com/bluegrass-beyond-borders-old-baby-mackerel/
Newbury Today:
https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/lifestyle/bluegrass-footstomper-kicks-off-ace-space-year-9236536/
The New Stour & Avon:
https://stouravonmagazine.co.uk/get-a-kick-up-yer-bluegrass/
“I’ve always got time for a bit of banjo” Cerys Matthews BBC 6 Music on playing Salty Dog Blues from the album Live at The Old Mill.
Available on iPlayer: BBC Music – Glastonbury, From The Fields, Cerys Matthews – A Joyous exploration: Glastonbury
“That’s the first bluegrass track I’ve played on Upload and I love it, so, so good!” Adam Crowther, BBC Radio Bristol
“A fine band of musicians and entertainers who would be at home playing in any holler in Appalachia. Real crowd pleasers with every tune and song they perform.” Richard Hurst, N. Ireland Bluegrass Music Festival Organiser
“Old Baby Mackerel hail from the thriving Bristol music scene and clearly love the more traditional aspects of the music, relishing the challenge of speedy playing and close harmonies around a central microphone. It needs musicians who are technically accomplished but also inventive and aware of their compadres at all times.[…] Standards such as Salty Dog Blues, Tennessee Waltz and Nine Pound Hammer rubbed along happily with newer numbers by Tony Rice, Ricky Scaggs and Townes van Zandt, alongside originals celebrating Bristol’s A roads and “one about a cat”. John Hartford’s Squirrel Hunters and Nellie Kane were particular highlights and the whole set flowed with relaxed charm and humour. The audience loved it.”
Trish Lee, Newbury Today https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/lifestyle/bluegrass-footstomper-kicks-off-ace-space-year-9236536/
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See Access, Tickets & Finding Us for more about why there are three ticket prices, plus other useful info about coming to events at Ashburton Arts Centre: getting here, parking, loos, PA tickets, etc.
Jun 2024
CAPTAIN OF THE LOST WAVESFriday 7 June 2024 at 7:30 PM
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The Captain is a troubadour, a storyteller and so it’s said, a free thinking renegade who writes songs that are at once unusual and dreamy, sometimes powerful and rocking, at other times softer, intuitive and spirited, rife with invention. It is said that the captain, in addition to being a eccentric songwriter and a gifted singer, is a master accordionist, and plays a number of unusual stringed instruments like oud, bouzouki, Lauto, and much more, and it’s their use that contributes to the world music flavor on many of his songs.
An evening with Martin Simpson
Thursday 13 June 2024 at 7:30 PM
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One of England’s most revered folk performers, widely acknowledged as one of the finest acoustic and slide guitar players in the world, Martin’s interpretations of traditional songs are masterpieces of storytelling. His remarkable solo shows are intense, eclectic, spellbinding and deeply moving.
Lost Songs of Scilly: Piers Lewin & John Patrick Elliott
Saturday 15 June 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Lost Songs of Scilly is a unique collaboration that seeks to capture the stories and essence of the Isles of Scilly in music. Foot-stomping reels blend into timeless songs and ambient immersive instrumentals — this is music infused with an unshakeable sense of place. Expect evocative island soundscapes, with samples of field recordings woven through songs of the sea, celebrating the resilience of a creative, independent island community and transporting audiences to this truly beautiful place.
Orlando Dibelo & Ruth Rozelaar: Bandoneón: A musical journey through the heart of tango
Tuesday 25 June 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Book here now: £15 full price • £10 or £7 if you prefer – please pay what you can*
Orlando and Ruth are playing a series of Milongas in June, where dancers can request their favourite tunes. This will be a seated concert where they’ll be exploring the repertoire of more lyrical Tangos, of which there are so many beautiful ones.
They are also running a workshop for musicians in which Maestro Dibelo will share, from decades of experience, the secrets of creating Tango Music. More about that here: xxx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qtfOvCx1MA
<b>Orlando dibelo</b> is considered one of the most important and influential Argentine bandoneonists of his generation. He began studying bandoneon at the age of nine with Eduardo Carpini in Buenos Aires. The teachers Carlos García and Calisto Sallago completed his musical training. As a young man, he performed with Roberto Firpo Jr. with the Cuarteto de Tango de la Vieja Guardia. He also triumphed in the competition “Nace una estrella” of the Argentine television channel 13 with the famous bandoneonist Juan José Mossalini, with whom he played “Adios Nonino” in a bandoneon duet. Astor Piazzolla himself wrote a glowing review of their performance of his famous tango, congratulating the young artists.
Throughout his extensive career, he has been prolific as an international tango performer. In Argentina, he tours both as a soloist and as a member of the prestigious José Basso Orchestra. He has performed with tango singers such as Amelita Baltar, María Graña, Jorge Casal, Chiqui Pereyra, Silvia del Rio, Alberto Podestá, Alfredo Beluzzi and Héctor de Rosas, and has been a regular guest on Argentine television channels 7, 9 and 11 in Buenos Aires.
In 2001 he moved to Spain, where he performed with the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and was invited to join tango groups such as Rayuela Tango, Ibertango and Art Tango Ensemble, among others. He has performed frequently in music festivals in Spain as well as in Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Estonia. From 2003 to 2008 he was the musical director of the prestigious National Tango Festival in the city of Alcantarilla, Murcia. He was the founder and musical director of the tango quintet “Fueye”.
He has made numerous recordings, interpreting both tango and popular Argentine music. Artists of the stature of Armando Manzanero and El Cabrero have requested his collaboration on their recordings. He was recently awarded the Cavaion d’Oro prize in Italy, in recognition of his professional career and his contribution to the international diffusion of tango. His musical career appears in the book “El Tango y sus protagonistas”, written by Héctor Romay.
Orlando Dibelo combines performances with teaching, being invited to give master classes in workshops dedicated to tango.
<b>Ruth Rozelaar</b> has undergone a self-directed and intensive 5 year long period of study, devoting 3 hours per day to Bandoneon practice, with the focus on playing A La Parrilla, for dancing. In January 2023, she began studying with Maestro Dibelo. She writes:
“I am honoured to be touring with such a grand maestro. Playing alongside him, diving deep into the tunes that I know so well from dancing, is an indescribably delicious experience. Just like dancers, we connect with each other through the music – every time it is new and exquisitely alive.”
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See Access, Tickets & Finding Us for more about why there are three ticket prices, plus other useful info about coming to events at Ashburton Arts Centre: getting here, parking, loos, PA tickets, etc.
Event Calendar
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What we’ve been up to so far…
