The Mouth of the Night 20 March 2013

All new Stroud Story Cabaret this March 

Bethany Porter and Richard Selby perform The Mouth of the Night: the Giant's Daughter and other songs and stories

All this and more on 20 March 2013 at The Hall, Gloucester Street, Stroud

This performance is a collaboration between two well established performers of folk song and folk story. The centre piece is a performance of The Giant’s Daughter or The Battle Of The Birds, weaving music and song into this multi layered wonder tale from the Celtic tradition; it is a classic quest and trials story encompassing many themes. The music for the piece is self composed and arranged from traditional folk song by Bethany, the storytelling by Richard. The performance includes other collaborative pieces, and a number of Bethany’s Songs. This will be the fifth outing for The Mouth Of The Night - three previous performances sold out., so snap up your tickets fast!

 

Bethany Porter is a classically trained cellist and singer. An accomplished songwriter, she fronts her own band: Beth Porter and the Availables, whose debut recording is due later this year.  She also plays and records with The Eliza Carthy Band and has performed with many other folk acts including Jim Moray, Jackie Oates, Newton Faulkner and Reg Meuross. Beth plays with The Bookshop Band and with The Stringbeans (her own string quartet). www.bethporter.co.uk

Richard Selby is a compelling storyteller. He has appeared in the Bath Literature Festival  several times both as a solo performer and with Fire Springs, Storytellers of Bath. He has also featured at a variety of other festivals and venues and runs the highly successful Bath based What A Performance!  a monthly evening of words, poetry, music and the unlikely. His second book will be published later this year; his first, The Fifth Quarter was published in 2008. www.richardselby.co.uk
 

“Richard Selby and Bethany Porter’s recital “The Mouth of the Night” was a totally compelling mixture of story-telling, music played on cello and ukelele and enchanting songs.  A wonderful evening!” – Ian Burton, writer
 

Also performing ... YOU! This is event is also YOUR chance to shine. Floor spots welcomed – bring a story, song or poem – or just come to listen. Floor spots should be ten minutes or less, and the only rule is no reading is allowed!
 

Refreshments will be available from Star Anise Arts Cafe
 

Wednesday 20 March

The Hall (British School), Open House, Gloucester St., Stroud

Refreshments available

Bookings: £6 (£5 concs) 01453 834793

 

Stroud Story Cabaret Thursday 8th December

Stroud’s Story Cabaret, Thursday 8 December

We’re ending the year with songs and stories from the Emerald Isle.   Austin Keenan and David Metcalfe will be enchanting us with stories and songs of ‘The Sons of Erin’. 

Stroud Story Circle presents its successful quarterly entertainment event.  Stroud's Story Cabaret is a storytelling and music event that features storytelling and musical talent from around the region, showcasing both familiar names and fresh talent to make a vibrant and exciting evening.  Each session is a potent mix of performances from a guest storyteller and musician and floor spots from the audience and members of Stroud Story Circle. 

Our December performance on Thursday 8 December is going to be a magical night with two fantastic performers from Herefordshire and Bath.  Herefordshire storyteller Austin Keenan will be telling a tale from the mists of Ireland’s legendary past, ‘The Sons of Turann’.  Bath-based folk-singer and storyteller David Metcalfe will be singing stirring songs from Ireland's troubled history of conflict, famine and faith.

Also performing ... YOU! This is event is also YOUR chance to shine. Floor spots welcomed – bring a story, song or poem – or just come to listen. Floor spots should be ten minutes or less, and the only rule is no reading is allowed!

7.30 for 8pm £6 (concessions £5).

Five Valleys Foyer Hall (British School), Gloucester Street, Stroud.

Drinks and snacks will be available at Star Anise Arts Cafe.

Bookings: Star Anise Arts Cafe 01453 840021.

Contact: Kirsty 01453 840887 info@kirstyhartsiotis.co.uk

Our featured performers:

Austin Keenan was born and brought up in Scotland but has lived the last 25 years in Herefordshire. While living in a community, he became interested in storytelling after seeing an episode of Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth. He then developed his storytelling skills by practising on the children living in the community.

When he moved away from the community in 1994 he became actively involved in local storytelling groups and has been fitting storytelling work around his occupation as a self-employed woodworker ever since.

In the past five years he has become particularly interested in early Celtic mythology.

David Metcalfe has been playing guitars and singing traditional ballads for decades. He has performed regularly in and around Bath, including the Priddy Folk Fair, the Bath Fringe Festival and the Bath Literature Festival, as well as at numerous informal events and sessions elsewhere in the South West and further afield.  He is the lead musician of Dark Tarn – watch out for their new album, Earthy Strong, coming soon.

David is a founder and regular performing member of the storytelling company Fire Springs, founded in 2000.  Fire Springs have staged the ecobardic storytelling epics Arthur’s Dream, Robin of the Wildwood, and Return to Arcadia and pioneering compilations of history, myth, and intercultural encounter, such as Voices from the Past, Vanished Voices, Tales from the Saxon Shore, Pilgrims of Love and Dark Age Deeds of the Celtic Saints.  He is a co-author of An Ecobardic Manifesto: a vision for the arts in a time of environmental crisis (2008).

Stroud's Story Cabaret

Stroud’s Story Cabaret, Thursday 22 September

What a line up! Jane Flood and Martin Solomon: Words and music enchantingly blended together by the compelling and bewitching Somerset storyteller and mesmerising Bristol harpist. 

Stroud Story Circle presents its successful quarterly entertainment event.  Stroud's Story Cabaret is a storytelling and music event that features storytelling and musical talent from around the region, showcasing both familiar names and fresh talent to make a vibrant and exciting evening.  Each session is a potent mix of performances from a guest storyteller and musician and floor spots from the audience and members of Stroud Storytelling Circle. 

Our September performance on Thursday 22 September is going to be an exciting night with two fantastic performers from Somerset and Bristol.  Jane Flood and Martin Solomon have been working together for over 15 years and have a delightful and easy synergy between them. The stories they will share in September are from Ireland, Russia and Lapland and are all crafted pieces from bigger performances.

Also performing ... YOU! This is event is also YOUR chance to shine. Floor spots welcomed - bring a story, song or poem - or just come to listen. Floor spots should be ten minutes or less, and the only rule is no reading is allowed!

7.30 for 8pm £6 (concessions £5).

Five Valleys Foyer Hall, Gloucester Street, Stroud.

Drinks and snacks will be available at Star Anise Arts Cafe.

Bookings: Star Anise Arts Cafe 01453 840021.

Contact: Fiona 01453 834793 fiona@fionaeadieltd.co.uk

Our featured performers:

Jane Flood has been a professional storyteller since 1990, and has performed in venues all over the world from big festivals to small firesides and just about everything in between.  Jane has travelled to Nepal, Tibet, East Africa, and South America collecting and telling stories but her recent work has bought her closer to home.  In the last five years she has been storyteller in residence for both the Mendip Hills and the Blackdown Hills AONB's and these two projects have reformed the way she now works. Her real passion is story and landscape, the way we as humans relate to the land and all its other inhabitants and then translate this relationship into story.

‘Her storytelling is magical ... truly inspired and inspiring’  - Clare Hein, Merlin Theatre, Frome

Martin is a multi-instrumentalist based in Bristol, and plays Celtic harp, fiddle, double-bass, sitar, accordion, mandolin and Theremin.  He has collaborated with Jane Flood for many years, as well as with Harpsong and Pindrop.  His debut album, the Song of Solomon, came out recently.

‘Martin Solomon plucks music from the air and captivates the audience.’

What a line up! Oxford's finest: Vergine Gulbenkian and Matt Sage

Stroud’s Story Cabaret: the June Session

Join us on ... Friday 17 June

After a cracking first session in March with Martin Maudsley's inspirational tribute to his grandfather Tom and his tales, Stroud Story Caberat is raring to go for its next session in June.  If the March session was anything to go by, our June set promises to be a another cracker!  We look forward as well to sampling more of Nick's lovely mezze snacks and drinks from Star Anise Arts Cafe who are as ever providing yummy refreshments - this time with an Armenian theme.

Our June performance is going to be an exciting night with two fantastic acts from Oxford, the storyteller Vergine Gulbenkian and the musician Matt Sage ... and YOU!  Floor spots are available for storytellers, musicians and other word speakers and singers!

Vergine Gulbenkian is a rising star of the UK storytelling scene.  She draws on her story-rich Armenian background, and has performed at venues as diverse as the South Bank Centre and the British Museum.  She will be performing Fire, the 17^th century love-epic of Kearam and Asli told by Armenian and Turkish bards and translated by Vergine herself. 

“Mesmerising… I have never been so captivated.”  Christina Patterson, South Bank Centre.

Matt Sage is an Oxford songwriter and founder of the legendary Catweazle Club (“Britain’s most intimate performance space” - THE TIMES), which now has branches in London, Brighton and New York.  Last year BBC Radio 4 broadcast a documentary on Matt and The Catweazle Club.  “Still The Machine”, from his new album, was the soundtrack to a Greenpeace and OXFAM film broadcast at Glastonbury and nine times Grammy winner Diana Krall personally invited Matt to open her London concert last Summer.  He will be showcasing songs from his latest album Let The Music Out.

“Seriously gorgeous sounds” - Mike Scott (The Waterboys)

Remember - for all you performers out there this is event is also YOUR chance to shine. Floor spots welcomed – bring a story, song or poem – or just come to listen. Floor spots should be ten minutes or less, and the only rule is no reading allowed!

This time we're part of a Festival!

All four of this year's events are funded by the excellent Stroud Arts Festival (SAF), an organisation with a 65 year track record for supporting the arts in the District, we are really delighted that this June session is also part of one of Stroud's most exciting festivals - SITE festival.  This festival has supported visual artists for several years bringing together a series of exhibitions and open studios, but has now formed a new partnership with the SAF which means that an all-new spoken word element has been added to the festival of which we are part!  It's going to be an exciting June...

Lots of other events happening in the Festival to get excited about too - check out the brochure.  Stroud Storytellers will also be performing in Garden of Awen: A Salutation to the Sun - the Summer Solstice Special featuring performers and writers associated with the Stroud-based 'Small Press with a Big Heart' Awen Publications.  

So you want to come to the Story Cabaret ?  Well, here are the details:  

Friday 17th June

7.30 for 8pm £6 (concessions £5). The Hall, Five Valleys Foyer, Gloucester Street, Stroud. Refreshments will be available at Star Anise Arts Cafe.

Bookings: Star Anise Arts Cafe 01453 840021. Contact: Kirsty 01453 840887 or info@kirstyhartsiotis.co.uk

Stroud Storytellers are: Fiona Eadie, Kirsty Hartsiotis, Di Humphries and Anthony Nanson - a small contingent of the storytelling talent in this small Cotswolds town!

Stroud Story Cabaret Launch Event



Stroud Storytellers present an all-new quarterly event in Stroud.  Stroud's Story Cabaret is a new storytelling and music event that will feature storytelling and musical talent from around the region.  Each session is a mix of booked performances from professional storytellers and musicians and floor spots from the audience. 

We kick off on Friday 18 March with Bristol performers Martin Maudsley and Fiona Barrow, who will be performing Old Tom's Tales, spellbinding oral storytelling and live acoustic music weaving a poignant and endearing account of one man’s life and the stories that surrounded him.

Old Tom’s Tales is framed by the life story of Thomas Molloy, a second generation Irish immigrant who lived and worked his whole life on a small farm in rural Lancashire. The narrative is gently threaded with folktales and local legends from the landscape and heritage of Old Tom’s homeland in Ireland and England: stories of boggarts and spirits that inhabit the shadowy places between reality and imagination; tall tales of country capers and ribald rural life; magical myths imbued with deep connections to the land; and gentle yarns that hold the bitter-sweet emotions of life and loss. Fiddle, guitar and voice sympathetically underscore the piece through original music alongside traditional tunes and folk songs. Old Tom’s Tales was originally performed at Bristol Storytelling Festival 2010.

Martin Maudsley is a professional storyteller based in Bristol.  He is the artistic director of the Bristol Storytelling Festival, was the Bard of Avalon in 2006/7, and also runs Folk Tales, a popular storytelling and music club in Bristol.  Fiona Barrow is a Bristol based multi-instrumentalist and composer, and with Edward Jay is a member of the group the Bristol Players. 

Floor spots welcomed – bring a story, song or poem – or just come to listen.  Floor spots should be ten minutes or less, and the only rule is no reading allowed!

7.30 for 8pm £6 (concessions £5). The Hall, Five Valleys Foyer, Gloucester Street, Stroud.  Refreshments will be available at Star Anise Arts Cafe.

Bookings: Star Anise Arts Cafe 01453 840021. Contact: Kirsty 01453 840887 or info@kirstyhartsiotis.co.uk

Stroud Storytellers are: Fiona Eadie, Kirsty Hartsiotis, Di Humphries and Anthony Nanson - a small contingent of the storytelling talent in this small Cotswolds town!

Stroud Story Cabaret is proud to have funding from Stroud Arts Festival.