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Richard Durrant is back home in Shoreham-by-Sea to kickstart the holidays with his 2019 Summer Special…

Guitarist and composer Richard Durrant returns with a musical celebration of midsummer and another classic series of gigs on the folk/classical cusp.

Maverick guitarist Richard Durrant kicks off the silly season with a fun packed musical celebration of the summer holidays – and of course the Beano Summer Special is in the shops!

Richard’s end of season Ropetackle gig is particularly special this year as his special guest will be the legendary Paraguayan harpist Cristobal Pedersen. Here’s a clip:

Richard said: “I always try and draft in some extra musicians to kick off the celebrations and it just so happens that Cristobal Pedersen, the Paraguayan harpist, is in England and will be joining me at the gig.

Cristobal founded the Arpa Roga which is Paraguay’s leading harp school.  He is the father of Kike (who wrote the harp music included on my Paraguayan trilogy) and we have been friends since my first tour of Paraguay in 2011.

Cristobal’s harp will fill the Ropetackle with South American colours – I just cannot wait.”

In the Ropetackle show Richard will also be performing Book of Spells and Bach’s 3rd Cello Suite which featured in the very successful Music for Midsummer Tour. Richard’s Midsummer Tour 2020 is already booked – and this will be another bicycle powered musical celebration beginning once again in St Magnus Cathedral, Isle of Orkney on June 4th and heading to Brighton Open Air Theatre in time for the Solstice.

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Join us for supper too
Before this event we’re also serving delicious food from 6pm.

And this is what is on the menu:
* a delicious main course of seafood chowder and crusty bread
* summer beans, potatoes and feta with salad
* a desert of Strawberry and white chocolate mousse cake.

All this for just £10 (or you can just have the main for £8 or the dessert for £3.50).

Please book in advance when you buy your tickets.

Following the February premiere of Richard Durrant’s Ukulele Quartet No.1 Tan y Bwlch, the piece has just been performed again – this time in North Wales, the land that inspired the work in the first place…

Composer, guitarist and ukulele pioneer Richard’ Durrant’s eternal enthusiasm for the uke has been boosted by successful appearances at the Ukulele Festival of Scotland and Meet the Ukulele Makers Festival (MUMF) at Plas Tan y Bwlch north Wales.

In 2018, Richard composed his six movement ukulele concerto, Six Grooves for Ukulele. This was the springboard to writing the first ever ukulele quartet which was inspired by the landscape of North Wales.

Ukulele Quartet No.1 Tan y Bwlch consists of three movements:
I  Penmaenbach
II  Cledrau
III Gogoniant

The piece can be performed by four ukes (all have to be tuned as re-entrant) or by solo ukulele plus three ukulele groups of any size.

The newly released audio recording is available on all digital platforms (i-tunes, Spotify etc).

There are also loads of tutorial films on the Richard Durrant Academy website to help with learning and performing the music.

And the score is also available to buy online.

CALLING ALL UKULELE PLAYERS

Here is a chance for all Ukulele players to join Richard and play along with him at two of his forthcoming Music for Midsummer shows:

• 20 June 7.45pm The Hawth, Crawley
• 21 June 7.30pm Brighton Open Air Theatre

Each concert in the Music for Midsummer tour includes Richard’s guitar piece Book of Spells as well as Bach’s 3rd Cello Suite played on a brand new SuperTenor Ukulele by the world renowned luthier Pete Howlett. This beautiful uke is made from pencil cedar and is an art object in its own right.

And if you want to take part here are the chord tabs you will need. Richard is refusing to say what the piece is – you’ll find out when you come along and play it – but numbers indicate the number of strums on each chord:

Click below for details of Richard’s five remaining Music for Midsummer gigs played on concert guitars, tenor guitar and ukuleles.

Following guest appearances on the main stage at major ukulele festivals in Wales and Scotland later this month, Richard’s Music for Midsummer Tour 2019 will begin at last with concerts in Aberystwyth and Narbeth.

After starting in Wales, the tour continues at a number of English venues before crossing over to France for a special concert in the beautiful church in Chef-Boutonne in France (halfway between Poitiers and Angoulemme).

‘It’ll be lovely to play my summer programme in France and to take some positive English vibes across into Europe! I did a little bit of practise in this church on the way to my Guitar Adventurers holiday last year and the acoustic is just fantastic.’

Richard is spending most of May hiding away preparing for the tour but before he did that he enjoyed seeing in the month with his dog Bollo!

The pair of them watched The Sompting Morris (see picture above) with an early morning dance on May Day in the centre of Shoreham. On the same day Radio London spent the afternoon playing extracts from Richard’s prog-folk classic song Morris Dreams – a 7.5 minute extravaganza from last year’s Stringhenge album. The song actually features Sompting Morris complete with sticks, boots and bells!

In addition to the huge Music for Midsummer Tour there are lots of other exciting activities in the months ahead across England, Scotland, Wales and France – check the diary for more information about all these concerts.

STOP PRESS: don’t miss the Homelink 20th Anniversary Concert at Glyndebourne, on Sunday 17 November 2019, 3pm. Richard will be one of the artists appearing at this event which will feature special guests from the charity’s VIP supporter base who will be on stage to introduce the acts.

Richard Durrant’s first ukulele quartet ‘Tan y Bwlch’ is soon to receive its first performance given the instrument a new status in the world of classical music…

Pic: Ukulele Quartet Poster

Since producing The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s 2004 album ‘The Secret of Life’, Richard is becoming increasingly influential in the ukulele world. In his 2012 solo tour of Paraguay, he was invited to play unaccompanied Bach on his uke on top of the Itaipu Dam overlooking Brazil, and in 2018 took part in a royal command performance at Buckingham Palace. And his wonderful six-movement ukulele concerto has ‘smuggled the little wooden box into the world of classical music’.

‘Richard’s ukulele compositions are masterful. They’re full of intriguing and catchy musical ideas which transcend the boundaries of academic or popular music – a game changer for the ukulele.’

George Hinchliffe, co-founder of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

When Richard was invited to perform at the finale of this summer’s Meet the Ukulele Maker’s Festival he saw it as a great opportunity to write and perform his first ukulele quartet. Set in Plas Tan y Bwlch, a former stately country house in North Wales’s Snowdonia National Park, Richard took its name as the title for his new quartet.

‘I’ve been visiting Snowdonia for over thirty years and I hope my love for the place comes across in this new music. But you have to understand this is an Englishman’s view – it’s me clutching my uke and gazing in awe at the mountains.’

Richard Durrant

TAN Y BWLCH

The World Première will take place at Ropetackle Arts Centre on Wednesday 27 February performed as part of a concert featuring Richard playing solo guitar, tenor guitar and ukulele. Tan y Bwlch will be performed by the composer plus thirty two of his Ukulele Circuit Trainers.

The performance at MUMF will be on 1 June. Richard is calling for participants who can download the resources online and watch specially prepared instructional videos to prepare for the workshops and performance at the festival

This three movement work can be performed by either four ukulele players, or three groups of players plus a soloist. The two outer movements are written in a minimalist style with intriguing, repeated patterns that suit the four ukuleles perfectly, conjuring up a beautiful, filmic landscape of sound. 

In Durrant’s ingenious score the four ukes perfectly mimic a Welsh train rushing through Snowdonia and there is even a brief interlude where the train pulls into a misty little station to take on water, coal and sandwiches!

In total contrast the middle movement is set to become a huge hit with uke lovers everywhere – it is the ukulele’s very own ’Orange Blossom Special’. But here Durrant is evoking the sound of the famous narrow gauge  Welsh Mountain Railway instead of the American express locomotive of that famous, bluegrass fiddle tune. 

Have a look at the second movement ‘Cledrau’…