Maiden City Festival Weblog

The Maiden City Festival came to a colourful close with the Crimson Player’s Pageant on the morning of the 322nd Annual Relief of Derry Commemorations, a day of celebrations.

And yet… throughout the week our photographers and video people were capturing images of the Festival. These are now being sorted and labelled, ready for upload. You can find some of the photographs already on our Flickr Channel and we are hoping that the first of the video will be on our YouTube Channel very soon.

So there are still hours of enjoyment to be had at the 2011 Maiden City Festival. Check on our Facebook page for up to date information. We’ll try to update from time to time here too.

Looking forward to 2012.

Although the Festival is one week in August, we have managed to stretch it out through the use of social media. So you can check out some of the Maiden City Festival 2010 memories (and from other years) on Flickr, YouTube and keep up to date on Facebook. Links to all are on our website www.maidencityfestival.com

Enjoy, and keep on enjoying favourite moments from the Maiden City Festival.

As usual, the way funding works, it is uphill from April until now just getting the applications and questionnaires and paperwork sorted. Then there is the programme to build based on success or otherwise.

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.

This is a first step as we slowly pull together our focus on the ballads of the Appalachians, which is our first project for the Fowk Foundation which we hope to launch before the start of the 2010 year’s Festival. 

At the 2009 Festival we launched the week in our usual Bluegrass way, with a day of Bluegrass around the historic Walls of Londonderry – though rain pushed most indoors.  Already in the comfort of the Verbal Arts Centre was Josh Goforth, from Madison County, deep in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. 

Josh is an outstanding musician, but also holds a passion for the heritage and culture of the mountains and in particular the ballads that were held for generations in a remoteness from modernity that was once afforded by the mountains. We asked Josh to open the Festival weekend with ‘a conversation on Mountain Life and Music’.  We are delighted to offer this podcast (free to download) of that afternoon’s presentation.

Josh Goforth Podcast by MaidenCityFestival

There are a number of videos from this afternoon session which will be on YouTube in due course. One tune not featured on the podcast was Josh’s final piece before he completed his presentation, taking him back to the beginning of his musical journey, at his Grandfather’s knee:

There are also examples of some of the music Josh talks about in different styles, to be found on the Maiden City Festival YouTube Channel, including this one taken from the evening concert at The Junction.

More later.

The Festival’s Tribute to William Love is available at www.maidencityfestival.com/williamlove/ performed by the outstanding Blackskull Corps of Fife & Drums.  In addition to the William Love tunes the Festival is delighted to be able to add to its YouTube Channel more of that evenings excellent musicianship with the addition of other arrangements and tunes, not by William Love. 

The first of these is:

More to follow.

On this Remembrance Sunday the Maiden City Festival has launch a small website dedicated to the ‘The Derrys’, the 10th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. This is the final part of the Festival programme which was based on the book was first published in 1991 and published as an updated second edition in this past year. The book has the benefit of reminisces of two old soldiers, Jim Donaghy from Londonderry and Leslie Bell from Moneymore.

Our video provides a short introduction presented by the author at the launch of the project in the Playhouse, though this was followed during Festival week by a full multi-media presentation. The Launch also drew attention to how the interest in the story of The Derrys sparked wider interest in the history of the First World War, and how that led to interest in the names of the Fallen on the City’s War Memorial.

Throughout Festival week, a number of young men explored the story within the book and on the Friday of the Festival week, these workshops provided a dramatic interpretation the books themes. It is a distinction of this project that the young men from Londonderry who explored the story of The Derrys are of the same age as those who volunteered for the Great War.

The week’s project is wrapped up in a song first performed at the launch of the project, by Josh Goforth. He had been thinking for some time of writing a song about soldiers serving abroad, with contemporary conflicts in mind. When he was a lad he would ask his grandfather about time served in World War Two. When he asked his grandfather where he fought, the answer was ‘Far Across the Sea’. The words seem as apt for our own generation as it was for his grandfather’s.

The real time final day of the Festival is here. Looking forward to the  short drama pieces based on the book “Three Cheers for The Derrys” at the Playhouse Theatre at 1pm.  Will probably just make the end of Balkan Alien Sound at the Verbal Arts Theatre.  Of course there are those other Culture Bite sessions at the other lunchtime venues. Afternoon feet up at the Memorial Hall for an afternoon of light entertainment. Wish.

Remember, after the Festival week is over we will continue to upload pictures and videos and update here on the Weblog. 

Videos from Festival performances will be at http://www.youtube.com/user/MaidenCityFestival

Pictures are being posted on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/maidencityfestival/collections/