Brighton Folk Choir
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Brighton Folk Choir End Of Term Show
Summer is Icumen In, and with it, my folk choir breaks up for the holidays. To celebrate, we had an end-of-term show, with any choir member invited up to sing a song, recite a poem, or dance a belly. I wish we’d do this more often. I love folk choir, and Jo is an amazing Read more
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Re-Enactment: The Diggers, Mark Thomas, Victoria Melody and the Brighton Folk Choir
“Your freedom to uphold / seeing Cavaliers of old / to kill you if they could / and rights from you withhold /Stand up now Diggers all!” Was it all just a fever dream? A sunny Saturday lunchtime, and my folk choir is singing a 17th century folk ballad in Whitehawk, encouraging gardeners with pitchforks Read more
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Jack In The Green, Catalyst Club, and Mark Thomas: 3 Brighton Folk Choir gigs in one week
Ours is a seasonal choir, in which we learn old songs with a sense of time and place. Sometimes this can be bittersweet, especially when sing of trees and birds that are now rare or under threat, but it helps reconnect one with the cyclical nature of existence, and the importance of community, ritual, and Read more
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Brighton Folk Choir: Apple Blossom Day, Stanmer Park
Last folk choir gig, we were still in wassail season: January, cold, mulled cider, and songs swathed in winter spirits and fear of darkness. Late April, and you would expect a different idiom. But it’s been a cold and damp spring, as befits our climate-uncertain times of underwater county cricket grounds and new-build estates on Read more
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This Machine Kills Wasps with MJ Hibbett, The Highchurches, Jo Burke, Shelf, Selena Mersey, and Mikey Bligh Smith
I arrive early, and the sound guy is already there. Conveniently, his name is Guy. Guy, the sound guy. Sound guy Guy. Guy Guy sound. He is friendly, and Australian. We have a nice chat, and as he sets up the stage, I learn his interest in experimental rock, music theory, and production. This is Read more
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Hurstpierpoint Wassail 2024
Another weekend, another Wassail. This time we went to the Sussex village of Hurtpierpoint, where Jo spent the day teaching tunes to locals, before we all gathered for a procession and some wassailing of apple trees. We ended up in a pub on the high street, in all our fairy lights and ivy finery, confusing Read more
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Brighton Folk Choir at Apple Harvest Day in Stanmer Park 2023
Our second Apple Day Sunday in a row! I don’t usually use exclamation marks but it seems justified here. If you can’t use exclamation marks about apples then when can you use them? We performed in the orchard, a beautifully idyllic place on a terrifyingly warm October Day. I’d never been to Stanmer Park before, Read more
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Brighton Folk Choir at Ditchling Apple Day 2023
On a worryingly hot October morning, I cycled over Ditchling Beacon for Apple Day 2023, a fun event on the village green for which my folk choir was providing the traditional element. The kind of gigs the Brighton Folk Choir get invited too are always brilliant, local and mildly eccentric, and Ditchling Apple Day was Read more
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Brighton Folk Choir at Oldland Windmill; walking back via Ditchling and the South Downs
Our second Bank Holiday gig in a row: this time at a 300 year old windmill, near Hassocks, a village that arrived 150 years later with the railway. The mill is in full working order, as I discovered when I saw flour from it for sale in the local Budgens nee the station. From here Read more
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Brighton Folk Choir live session on Mid Sussex Radio
Last night I went to Burgess Hill with the Brighton Folk Choir to sing a live session on Mid Sussex Radio. Burgess Hill is only ten minutes on the train but feels a generation away. The shops are largely gone – Amazon waits for no one – but it was good to see a board Read more
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