The Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast has announced that this year’s Oh Yeah Legend Award will go to one of Northern Ireland’s leading rock guitarists, Vivian Campbell. Running alongside the NI Music Prize, the presentation will mark the culmination of the Sound of Belfast festival (2-11 November 2017) and will be followed by a live performance by Vivian with his current band, Last In Line, at Mandela Hall, Belfast. Vivian Campbell is one of the leading names in rock from Northern Ireland. His story is one of global success that began with Sweet Savage, a band considered to be…
Following the latest round of funding awards by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), seven projects will create new music rooted in the English folk tradition. EFDSS has made four awards under its 2017 Creative Bursary scheme and three through its Creative Seed Funding programme. Funded through the PRS for Music Foundation Talent Development Partner scheme, both initiatives come under the umbrella of EFDSS’s Artists’ Development Programme, which provides professional development support, both creative and business, to artists at all levels of their careers. The Creative Bursary scheme invited applications from more established artists for an award of…
Following a successful festival in Worcester at the end of July 2017, the Three Choirs Festival has become one of the UK’s first national cultural organisations to adopt the Family Arts Campaign‘s new Age-Friendly Standards. Supported by Arts Council England and developed in consultation with Age UK, arts and cultural organisations and older arts attenders in response to a drop-off in cultural engagement in later life, the Age-Friendly Standards provide guidance on welcoming older people – with a new kitemark affirming that an organisation has considered the needs of older visitors. The Age Friendly Standards address five key areas when welcoming older audiences: Building relationships Considering suitable…
As part of ICMP’s ongoing drive to develop international networks, students from its BA Songwriting course travelled to Italy last month to play at the ICMP Off live showcase in collaboration with Italian music school, Altramusica. The event took place at the Osteria S’Ciavinaro venue in Veneto and was just one of a number of performances and experiences enjoyed by ICMP students, Eduardo ZoSo Giusto, Namugga, Helena Cate, Bronte Clare, Ellie Grace, Diamantina and Tessa MacGibbon. The collaboration was the brainchild of Luca Pellizzaro, one of the founders of Altramusica and the creator of London Music Weekend, a project where…
The National Youth Choirs of Great Britain (NYCGB) has announced that its Summer concert will be broadcast as a Facebook livestream. The concert takes place in the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge and is conducted by Stephen Layton, Director of Music at Trinity and Founder/Director of internationally renowned professional choir, Polyphony. The programme features a cappella choral music by Poulenc and Frank Martin as well as the world premiere of a new work by Latvian composer, Ēriks Ešenvalds. Powered by Musicgurus and supported by Trinity College, the livestream will be broadcast in HD-quality video and audio and will also be made available for permanent viewing on NYCGB’s YouTube…
Marking the 2018 centenary of the Representation of the People Act – before which women in the UK were unable to vote – is a rare performance at the UK Three Choirs Festival of the Mass in D by Ethyl Smyth, a prominent member of the suffragette movement. The 2018 Three Choirs Festival, which takes place in Hereford, includes Elgar’s 1896 cantata, King Olaf, Parry’s cantata, Invocation to Music, and a performance by vocal ensemble Tenebrae of Parry’s sumptuous Songs of Farewell, composed in the last two years of his life. Other highlights include Lili Boulanger’s setting of Psalm 130 and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. The three…
Yamaha Music London has announced details of its free concert series, The Silent Piano Sessions. Each concert will be performed on Yamaha’s new Silent Piano, an acoustic piano with pioneering Silent Technology which allows audience members to listen to the CFX Concert Grand – a piano 19 years in the making – through wireless headphones. For its Silent Pianos, Yamaha’s goal was to make a true acoustic piano which can be played using headphones – making the piano silent to anyone else in the room. When activated, Silent Technology captures every movement of the piano keys, hammers and pedals, using…
Help Musicians UK, the largest provider of health and welfare support for the British music industry, has announced Music Minds Matter, a new campaign for music-industry-wide support of the world’s first dedicated 24/7 mental health service for people working in music. The announcement on 24 July 2017 sees HMUK call for ‘arm in arm’ support from the music industry and philanthropists to match HMUK’s investment of £100,000. The campaign was launched as a response to the death of Linkin Park lead singer, Chester Bennington, and follows HMUK’s identification of a mental health crisis among those working in the music industry. The…
The Irish national music education organisation, Music Generation, announced on 18 July 2017 that it will expand into nine new areas of Ireland within five years, thanks to the ongoing support of U2 and The Ireland Funds who together will have raised a total of €6.3m for the programme’s second phase. This combined investment in Phase 2 of Music Generation will include donations from the proceeds of U2’s The Joshua Tree Tour 2017, as well as donations previously raised for Music Generation through the band’s iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour in 2015, alongside further philanthropic investment by The Ireland Funds. A grant from Bank of America, through the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, forms part of The Ireland Funds’ investment in this second phase of Music Generation. This next phase of Music Generation has been assured of long-term sustainability…
The role of choral music has taken on new significance in the light of recent tragedies in the UK and, for composer, Howard Goodall, it’s one more reason why access to music-making is essential for everyone, not just those who can afford to pay. Karen Stretch catches up with him at his Burgundy bolt-hole. In a scenario that has stayed unchanged for centuries, a celebrated composer is squirrelled away in the composing room at his French home, allowing the soundtrack of his thoughts to spill out onto manuscript paper. So far, so traditional. But, unlike Deodat de Severac in Languedoc…
