Coope Boyes & Simpson
Coope Boyes & Simpson
Summer Dates and Festivals
Coope Boyes & Simpson Fi Fraser
Jo Freya Georgina Boyes
'Voices
of the People' Ralph Vaughan Williams and Folksong
26 June Wentworth Parish
Church - Rotherham
First
Performance of New Words and Music Production
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coope Boyes & Simpson
“As
passionate a tour de force of unaccompanied singing as you can imagine.” Mojo
“Inspired. Barbed lyrics, a wide pitch range and thrilling bass sonorities
swapped between all three. If there were such a thing as postmodern folk music,
this might be it.” The Guardian
CONTACT
–
Georgina Boyes
georgina@nomasters.co.uk
/ +44 (0) 1709 375 063
Live Review
Barbican Hall, London
John L Walters
Monday September 22, 2003
The Guardian
What the trio does seems simple at first glance: just three blokes who stand
and sing in three-part harmony. Their songs, mostly written by Jim Boyes and
Lester Simpson, deal with social and environmental issues and the words are
clever and sharp. The harmonies are in the folk-country tradition, but with a
twist that mirrors the barbed lyrics, a wide pitch range and thrilling bass
sonorities swapped between all three.
Twenty-Four Seven - Simpson's critique of Britain's long-working-hours
culture - has a melody that turns the traditional work song on its head.
Privatise, by Boyes, covers the subject matter of Jonathan Coe's novel What a
Carve Up in a similarly angry yet entertaining way: "Dick the shepherd's
finger, ended up in shepherd's pies/And all you can do is criticise." If
there were such a thing as postmodern folk music, this might be it. Their medley
of Mike Waterson's Cold Coasts of Iceland and Three Ships (a memorial to three
Hull trawlers that sank in 1968) has a vivid immediacy that Simon Schama would
envy.
In Coope Boyes and Simpson's repertoire there is a hinterland of music and
culture that makes their work more multi-dimensional than that of the other acts
on the bill. Polemical reports of injustice and inequality are woven into tales
of everyday lives, told in plain words and distinctive tunes.
Latest
Coope Boyes & Simpson albums available now - www.nomasters.co.uk
COOPE
BOYES & SIMPSON
Since
their first appearance in 1993, Coope Boyes and Simpson’s powerful and
distinctive unaccompanied singing and songwriting have taken English roots into
radical new directions. Described as "quite simply the best purveyors of
acappella song on these Islands", the trio’s first record, Funny
Old World, was the rock magazine Q’s Roots Album of the Year
and their live debut on BBC Radio Four drew praise from the classical composer
Steve Martland. Subsequent solo and joint releases have led to awards and
outstanding reviews – the BBC Folk Website simply listed all their albums as
recommended listening.
The trio’s sharp and evocative
writing and arranging has brought commissions for songs and music from a wide
range of organisations – and found a welcome place in the concert sets and
albums of singers like June Tabor and Maggie Boyle.
Following a request from Andy Kershaw, they provided the signature tune
and songs reflecting the state of contemporary
England
for his BBC Radio One series Kershaw Comes Home, and to celebrate the
Millennium, the town of
Belper
in Derbyshire invited them to create a suite of songs about its past, present
and future.
Their work for the Flemish arts organisation, Peace Concerts Passendale
has involved them in specially created concerts of songs and music growing out
of the events of the First War which have toured in England and Belgium, a
commission for a Suite to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of
Passchendaele which has its first performance in the re-built town and
collaborations with the sixty-strong World Choir, Wak Maar Proper, on a words
and music commemoration of the Christmas Truces of the First War.
As
singers Coope Boyes & Simpson have appeared on the Main Stages of Festivals
from
Cambridge
to
Bruges
,
Sidmouth to Skågen in
Denmark
,
at Celtic Connections in Glasgow and Stimmen, Voices, Voix at Lörrach in
Germany
.
They’ve broadcast live in the middle of a thunderstorm at the opening of the
David Hockney Gallery at Salts Mill, given concerts in York Minster, Yprès
Cathedral and the twelfth century Abbey Ar Releg in
Brittany
- and sung to an audience of twenty thousand at the Dranouter Festival in
Flanders
.
In November 2002, they provided the songs and music for Some Desperate Glory, a
memorable evening of First War poetry with readings by Oscar-winner,
Jim
Broadbent, Jane Lapotaire, Susannah Harker, Samuel West, Chewetel Ejifor and
Saeed Jaffrey.
Fittingly for such a collection of actors, the concert took place at Her
Majesty’s Theatre in
London
’s
West End
,
temporarily displacing the run of Phantom of the Opera.
Other recent highlights have been storming Main Stage concert sets at
Celtic Connections and Cambridge broadcast on Radio Scotland and BBC4, joining
twenty-one musicians from across Europe to create Seeds of Peace, an
international concert marking the tenth anniversary of Peace Concerts Passendale
in Flanders and a run of sell-out performances for the Christmas words and music
production Fire and Sleet and Candlelight which featured the new six-piece
acappella combination of Coope Boyes and Simpson, Fi Fraser,
Jo
Freya
and
Georgina Boyes
.
Live concerts by the band have been
broadcast on radio and television in
Britain
and
Europe
and on record their singing is heard as often on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction
as on Mike Harding’s Folk Programme on Radio 2 or Radio Klara, the Flemish
classical music station. Songs like
Lester
Simpson
’s Polly
on the Shore, Ao Tea Roa and Twenty-four Seven and
Jim
Boyes’ Unison in Harmony, Bringing in the Sheaves and Sharpen the Sickle have
been recorded groups and choirs in
Britain
and
North America
.
Whilst tracks recorded by Coope Boyes and Simpson themselves have featured in
programmes as varied as BBC television’s Panorama, the BBC Radio 2 music
documentary Harvest Home and the Channel 4 film, The Underground War - they even
provide a musical test piece for the Cambridge University Advanced Course in
English for Foreign Students.
Tours
have already taken them throughout
Britain
,
to the
Netherlands
,
Belgium
,
Portugal
,
France
and
America
.
Their workshops for choral groups have crossed language barriers to encourage
performance and partici
pat
ion
in
England
,
the Continent - and even
Scotland
.
“Their voices weave through and bounce off each other with a powerful
elegance,” wrote an American reviewer, “it’s nice to know that, even with
the numbing array of technology available, the human voice is still one of the
most expressive instruments around.
BLUE
MURDER
With
Norma and Mike Waterson, Martin and Eliza Carthy, Coope Boyes and Simpson are
also members of the ‘legendary and occasional supergroup’ Blue Murder.
With nominations for Best Group and Best Album of 2002 here and in the
USA
, their set at Celtic Connections in
Glasgow
this January resulted in three standing ovations - see the Blue Murder section
of the site for more news of their doings.
CONTACT - Georgina Boyes +44 (0) 1709
375 063
georgina@nomasters.co.uk
Please send us an email if you want to
be on our mailing list - you can either contact Georgina as above:
georgina@nomasters.co.uk
or me at:
jim@coopeboyesandsimpson.co.uk
Please keep letting us
know what you think about; the layout, any problems, and any other information
you would like to see.
Many Thanks
Jim Boyes