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.
Entrance to the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall and Siege Museum is FREE throughout Festival week – £2 per person throughout the rest of the summer.
This year there is a small range of merchandise available at the Hall. Including these Apprentice Bears of Derry taking a brief break off the shelf to enjoy some of the afternoon entertainment around the historic Walls of Londonderry. There’s lots to see in the Hall and on the Walls throughout Festival week, promising a great day out in Londonderry.
Apprentice Bears of Derry enjoying the historic Walls of Londonderry.
Last minute something always gets overlooked. We forgot to change the dates of the Tea Dances in the Mem from last year’s.
This year’s Good Afternoon in the Mem will take place from Monday and each day to Thursday 9th to 12th of August – NOT the week before, as printed in the programme. So let everyone know the dates when you can dance away the afternoon to the sounds of Danny Feeney on Monday and Thursday, and John Trotter & Friends on Tuesday and Wednesday. And there is a cup of tea too.
Come to the Mem for a cup of tea and a dance, 2.30pm-4.30pm Monday to Thursday, 9th-12th August.
It will be one of the biggest line dance extravaganza of the summer, if not the year, in the North West, and maybe even the whole country. Tickets are selling fast. Everyone who has been before knows that the perfectly sprung floor of the main hall in the Memorial Hall is perfect for dancing the night away. Dance until you drop, from 9pm to very very late, Saturday 7th August.
Welcoming the announcement that Londonderry will be the 2013 UK City of Culture, Jim Brownlee, Governor of the Apprentice Boys of Derry and Chairman of the Maiden City Festival says:
“The Apprentice Boys of Derry and the Maiden City Festival are delighted to be able to look forward to celebrating in 2013 as a big part of the UK City of Culture. This is an exceptional year; with the 400th Anniversary of its Royal Charter establishing the City of Londonderry, and the prelude year to the 300th Anniversary in 2014 of the establishment of the first Apprentice Boys Club by Col. Mitchelburne. Congratulations to the Bid team, and we look forward to working with the 2013 UK City of Culture team in planning a great year of celebration for a great City.”
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.
We’ve uploaded some of the pictures taken at our Review night which took place in Londonderry’s Guildhall on Friday 5th February. This brought the best of many of the performances from the Festival 2009 to one place on one night. The Review/Revue provided an opportunity for those not around in the first week of August to see the full variety and diversity of the Festival’s programme. You can go to FLICKR here.
Pictured here are the Victoria Line Dancers getting ready for their exhibition. This and other videos from the night are available on our YouTube Channel. All links are available on the right hand side of this page.
