Rainy Boy Sleep is at Cafe Nervosa, and not Furlo;
Paula McAleese is still performing, at Claudes and not as Louis’s in the programme;
Michael E Thomas replaces Teg Magee at the Boston Tea Party in the Craft Village;
and poorly Paul Corrigan is unable to be at Java and, stepping in at short notice, Joan McEldowney is there instead.

All Culture Bite venues are 12.30-2.30pm. Up to date details on our website’s Thursday page.

No changes for Friday at this point and only one or two earlier. No idea what Thursday has done to deserve this amount of disruption – though you’ll hardly notice with the excellent range of talent that has been brought in.

On an entirely plus point, and nothing to do with cafe performances, we have added an extra exhibition to tie in with the Somme 95th Anniversary Tribute concert (SOLD OUT). Ulster at War: an exhibition of Ulster engagement in the Great War with a range of period memorabilia in the Memorial Hall’s Black Room – 10am-5pm.

The Bluegrass on the Walls line-up has changed a little, with the addition of David Hope & The Henchmen. And the Bluestack Mountain Boys are in fact the Blackstack Mountain Boys.

Monday lunchtime at the Cafe Nervosa on Magazine Street, our Culture Bite will not be Eoin O’Callaghan and will instead be local band Intermission – again full details on the Maiden City Festival website.

On Wednesday Janet Dowd will be at the Boston Tea Party in the Craft Village. Originally it was to have been Mons Wheeler.

And on Wednesday evening the inside spread of our printed programme says the Crimson Players will be at the Verbal Arts Centre on Wednesday when they will of course be at the Memorial Hall at 8pm-10pm with their annual Variety Show.

Other than those very small changes in a very large programme everything is up to date. Double check the website listing for each day to be sure.

All that is left to say is enjoy the Festival.

At this point we are pleased to say we have a full programme, and just still waiting on some final news that will enable us to announce the full programme early next week. 

In the meantime we are able to confirm that we are building on our living history presentations around the walls. Not only do we once again have The Siege Story in St Columbs Cathedral, we also have a new series of Siege Tales from seven characters around the Walls.  Our hugely successful lunchtime Culture Bite menu of lunchtime perfomances from singer/songwriters and solo/duo artists is expanding to three new venues.  There are lots of last year’s performances on our Maiden City Festival YouTube Channel.

Enjoy a lunchtime Culture Bite at venues within and around the historic Walls.

Our Line Dance Extravaganza looks on its way to be another extraordinary success on the opening Saturday night.  Also on the Saturday night, following an afternoon of Bluegrass around the Walls, we have an all female concert lineup of Bluegrass inspired performances in The Junction on Bishop Street.

Thursday night is band night, with the Imperial Corps of Drums from Liverpool bringing the Mersey to the Foyle, and Them Beatles finishing a night of tribute to the sounds of Liverpool.   

There is lot more, but we have to wait another day or so to complete the programme. So for full details, watch this blog or follow us on Facebook.  If you can’t wait go to www.maidencityfestival.com and connect to lots of our micro sites and webspaces created from previous events.

It is not fair to pick one of the performances for special attention, but as editor I will anyway.  The Henry Girls have been a long-standing feature of our lunchtime events at the Verbal Arts Centre each August and they were more than happy to be available for our review night. There are two songs from them up on YouTube from the night. This one silenced Londonderry’s Guildhall. It is available on their latest CD called DAWN, which can be found on their website www.thehenrygirls.com

There are a number of other videos on the website including dance from the Sollus Highland Dancers from Bready and the Victoria Line Dancers. Apologies for the video as the digital struggled to cope with the changing lights: though the result has an impact of its own. More photos of the night on Flickr very soon.

Here she is with one of her own compositions ‘That Leaves Me’ which is on her new CD available from all good record stores in Northern Ireland. I bought mine in HMV, though I had to go to the back and find it in the ‘Irish Section’ – surely this music deserves to be front of house HMV! A wonderful collection of songs from a very talented singer/songwriter.  We’ll let you know when the album appears online.