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.
Apr 2024
Postponed: Peggy Seeger in conversation with Sam RichardsThursday 25 April 2024 at 7:30 PM
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An intimate conversation with a unique artist who has carved a special place in the folk pantheon of both the UK and the USA.
Now in her late 80s, Peggy’s light burns as brightly as ever. A multi-instrumentalist (piano, guitar, 5-string banjo, autoharp, English concertina and Appalachian dulcimer), she is lauded for her feminist and political songs and her co-creation of The Radio Ballads. She has made 24 solo recordings and participated in over a hundred more.
NOBATB King Dinosaur / Jeff Horsey
Friday 26 April 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Speakeasy-meets-Dick-Dale in this psychedelic Spaghetti Western Swing Band. Guitar, Trumpet, Double Bass, Piano and Drums with lots of harmony singing.
Deep Time Moving - Kyra Norman (Upstairs in Studio)
Saturday 27 April 2024 at 6:00 PM
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Deep Time Moving brings together dance and geology in a playful exploration of place and environment: how might an embodied imagining of the distant past help us to imagine new futures? Expect sounds from out on the cliffs and under the Atlantic Ocean, costumes fit for the walking holidays of your dreams, atmospheric lighting, and exquisite movement inspired by rocks, water and rural rituals. Some spoken word and printed resources are integrated, referencing geological stories: histories of the ground beneath our feet.
Weird Dog
Saturday 27 April 2024 at 8:00 PM
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Just bliss out and dance to the uplifting house music and transcendental visualisations that these guys create.
Lyric Chamber Orchestra: coffee and cake concert, Elgar, Wirén and Dvořák
Sunday 28 April 2024 at 11:00 AM
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Elgar, Introduction and Allegro
Dvořák, Serenade for strings
Dag Wirén, Serenade
This Devon-based ensemble is led by violinist Patricia Calnan, who played for years with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner. This is part of the orchestra’s first season of concerts under the baton of its new conductor, Keith Marshall.
Ash Arts Community Cabaret
Sunday 28 April 2024 at 7:30 PM
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This is YOUR chance to take to the stage, with a friendly, supportive audience. Everyone is welcome to perform something – if you need some. Our MC is Dilys Dalrymple, the clown alter ego of someone very close to this place. Email boxoffice@ashburtonarts.org.uk and tell her what you’d like to do. There’ll be piano, PA, mics and a stage. If you need help, we will if we can.
Iago Banet
Monday 29 April 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Banet released his third studio album in March 2023 and, in it, he takes the acoustic guitar to its limits. The album features new levels of skill, complexity and versatility, fusing styles, including gypsy jazz, blues rock, country, dixieland, swing, pop and folk. Iago’s technique and approach to performance have captivated crowds across the UK and Spain. A one-man-band on acoustic guitar. “A master of the guitar” Sean Rafferty, BBC Radio 3
Roger Beaujolais Trio
Tuesday 30 April 2024 at 7:30 PM
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When Roger plays his vibraphone, it feels like you’re in tropical sunshine! He hit the scene with the Chevalier Brothers, then as an Acid Jazz star; he’s recorded with Robert Plant, Morrissey, Kirsty MacColl, Roni Size and Paul Weller plus countless stars of the jazz world. He’s squeezing us in before a tour with the reformed Fairground Attraction. With Neil Burns on guitar, and Kevin Sanders on double bass a dazzling night of great music is guaranteed.
May 2024
Tinners Moon Afternoon Dance with the Ashburton Folk OrchestraThursday 2 May 2024 at 1:00 PM
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David Faulkner leads the Ashburton Community Folk Orchestra. He’ll be calling folk dances perfect for a spring Thursday afternoon.
Suntou Susso, Kora Master
Thursday 2 May 2024 at 7:30 PM
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Suntou is a kora player, percussionist, singer and composer from The Gambia. Born a griot in the 700-year old tradition unique to the Mandinka people. Suntou has a unique societal role as oral historian whilst transmitting and preserving a people’s culture through the generations in song, music and poetry. His musical abilities are outstanding and he is an in-demand and charismatic performer.
The Scribes
Friday 3 May 2024 at 7:30 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!
’Oss Gals and Morris Men: Folk Reimagined and Retold: Talk and Film: Way of the Morris
Saturday 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.
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.
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.
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.
Event Calendar
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What we’ve been up to so far…
