EARLY 2008
CONCERTS – TOURS - FESTIVALS
13 Jan – Coope Boyes & Simpson - Hitchin Folk Club
The Sun Hotel, Sun Street, Hitchin SG5 1AF
Info: 01462 812391 / goodmusic@hitchinfolkclub.co.uk / www.hitchinfolkclub.co.uk
19 Jan – KLARA in het Paleis 2008
Coope Boyes & Simpson and Donal Byrne accompanied by Inge Spinette
Concert of folksongs collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Paleis voor Schone Kunsten/Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
On Saturday 19 January, KLARA, the classical radio station of the
VRT (Flemish Radio and Television, Belgium), celebrates music and the
arts on its annual Festival Day at the Brussels Paleis voor Schone
Kunsten / Palais des Beaux-Arts. To honour the 50th anniversary of the
death of Ralph Vaughan Williams one of the concerts that day will focus
on the folk-songs Vaughan Williams collected as well as arrangements he
wrote for a number of them.
Vaughan Williams had the greatest respect for the creative and personal style of many of the traditional singers and in that spirit the English a cappella trio Coope, Boyes & Simpson has been invited to sing these folk-songs in their own arrangements. Vaughan Williams' classical versions will be sung by the Irish tenor Donal Byrne with Flemish pianist Inge Spinette.
www.bozar.be / http://www.klara.be/html/paleis2008/kip_fs.html
16 Feb – Cheltenham Folk Festival with Jo Freya’s LWP
23 Feb – Coope Boyes & Simpson - Harmony Workshop & Concert
Cranleigh Arts Centre, High Street, Cranleigh
Workshop 10am – 4pm
Concert 7.30pm
Tickets: 08456 128 128 / Info: info@themusicinstitute.org.uk / www.electricvoices.org
7 March – Coope Boyes & Simpson – In Concert
Main Stage, Loughborough Folk Festival, Loughborough Town Hall
Info: http://folkfestival.loughboroughtownhall.co.uk/friday.html
8 March – Coope Boyes & Simpson in Concert -The David Hall, Roundwell Street, South Petherton, Somerset, TA13 5AA
Info: Tel/Fax: 01460 240340 / www.thedavidhall.org.uk
9 March – Coope Boyes & Simpson in Concert with Fishermen’s Friends
Port Isaac, Cornwall
In aid of Royal National Lifeboat Institution
Info: portisaacpottery@btconnect.com
21 June - Coope Boyes & Simpson in Concert
The Fisher Theatre, Broad Street, Bungay, Suffolk
Tickets: 01986 897130 (Open 11.00am-3pm with Answerphone at other times) or boxoffice@fishertheatre.org
Info: http://www.fishertheatre.org/
26 June – “Voice of the People”: Ralph Vaughan Williams and Folksong
Coope Boyes & Simpson, Fi Fraser, Jo Freya, Georgina Boyes
Info: www.coopeboyesandsimpson.co.uk Box Office: 01709 823621
In the decade before the First War, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) discovered a source of melody and an approach to music that inspired compositions throughout the rest of his career. During summers spent with the Gatty family at Hooton Roberts Rectory near Rotherham and in visits to village pubs, cottages and gypsy camps from Essex and Surrey to North Yorkshire and Herefordshire, Vaughan Williams recorded around eight hundred songs and tunes that underlie orchestral works like Norfolk Rhapsody, Fantasia on Greensleeves and the English Folk Song Suite and were the sources of tunes in Hymns Ancient and Modern and The Oxford Book of Carols. Folksong was, he wrote, “the voice of the people… beautiful in itself and which has in it the germs of great art.”
Voice of the People brings together Coope Boyes and Simpson, whose innovative acappella arrangements of folksongs collected by Vaughan Williams have already won international acclaim, and Classic FM Christmas favourites Fi Fraser, Jo Freya and Georgina Boyes in a specially written words and music production marking the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death. Songs Vaughan Williams noted from the countryside are interlinked with his characteristically perceptive descriptions to give a first-hand account of this exciting period in English music. It’s a rare chance to hear the original sources of some of the composer’s best-loved music for concert hall and church, as well as lesser known songs and carols he collected in Yorkshire.
Wentworth Brewery are also producing a special beer, ‘Lark Ascending’ to mark the occasion.
3 Aug – Jo Freya’s LWP – A Celebration of the Songs of Lal Waterson
Dranouter Folk Festival, Belgium
5 Aug – Jo Freya’s LWP – A Celebration of the Songs of Lal Waterson
Sidmouth Folk Week
http://www.sidmouthfolkweek.co.uk/
10 Aug - Jo Freya’s LWP – A Celebration of the Songs of Lal Waterson
Pickering Folk Festival
Pickering Showground, YO18 8EA
http://pickeringfolkfestival.theeventsoffice.co.uk
10 Aug – Coope Boyes & Simpson in Concert
Pickering Folk Festival
Pickering Showground, YO18 8EA
http://pickeringfolkfestival.theeventsoffice.co.uk
21 Sept – Coope Boyes & Simpson in Concert
Otley Folk Festival
http://www.otleyfolkfestival.com/