Although the Old Fountain Tour has orginally been planned for the one week in the run-up to the Festival we are delighted that William Temple is able to offer the tour for a second week. Thanks to William, the Old Fountain Tour will be available throughout Festival Week, starting each day at the Thiepval Gallery, George Street, the Fountain at 12 noon. Lasts about 40 minutes.
The Bobby Jackson Mural, the Fountain, with family members at last year's unveiling during Festival week.
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.
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.
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 Maiden City Festival held a review eveing on 5 February 2009. It was an event were we could showcase the variety and diversity of the Festival to many from the community or business sectors who would not be around in August: August is the traditional holiday period in Londonderry much as the first two weeks of July are in Belfast. It was a great night of drama, music and dance.
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.
We’ve been busy since the last post. At the end of November we launched a new mini website containing a Tribute to William Love. This was a selection of original compositions and arrangements by Londonderry man William Love, who grew up in the Fountain and played in many of the bands around the City. The Festival was delighted to have the Black Skull Corps of Fife & Drums playing these tunes and more at a a very special concert in the Memorial Hall. More can be found by clicking on this photo’s caption. This was taken when we unveiled a commemorative plaque close to where his home once stood on Wapping Lane.
Then, just this past weekend a new site was launched in time for the Anniversary date of 18th December, the Shutting of the Gates, when apprentices closed the gates against soldier’s loyal to King James. The impact of this spontaneous defiance was to lead to the siege of Londonderry 1688-1689, the consequences of which were of European importance. The Festival’s presentation of the Siege Story in St Columb’s Cathedral, itself of great historic significance to Siege times, is a ‘promenade’ style performance as each actor leads us to the next step along the Siege Story. We hope you enjoy, and perhaps even think about coming to see a live performance at the Maiden City Festival 2010.
On the Three Cheers for The Derrys! site Eamonn Baker mentions the forthcoming launch of a new book, planned for November. The book was launched on Wednesday evening, Armistice Day.
Remembering has grown out of research conducted over the past few years by Trevor Temple, staff member of the North West War Memorial Project. The following is the description of the book provided by Yes Publications for the launch:
“Remembering is a tapestry of stories created from edited interviews with families who lost loved ones during the First World War. Without the generous commitment and openness of all twenty eight interviewees, this book would not have been possible. Each interviewee has shared precious family stories which previously had remained hidden from our collective view.
While Spike is joined by the rest of the Siege Story cast on YouTube we present the very lovely distraction of Eilidh Patterson. Eilidh performed beautifully as part of our Culture Bite lunchtime menu of artists within and around the Walls of historic Londonderry during the Festival.
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.
Work continues on the development of the series of microsites around the Maiden City Festival. The Derrys site was launched for Remembrance Sunday. For the Commemoration marking the 321st Anniversary of the Shutting of the Gates in December the Festival will launch The Siege Story, recordings of the five part ‘promenade’ performance of the story of the siege of Londonderry. We are hugely appreciative for the support of the Dean and Chapter of the historic St Columb’s Catherdral for hosting this event.
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.
