ENSEMBLES OF EXCELLENCE Maximum Ensemble maestros del minimalismo Salon Indieras, Tias, March 2020 Review by Norman Warwick We turned up to collect our reserved tickets at the desk in in Salon Indieras in Tias to see Maximum Ensemble, who carry the somewhat grand sobriquet of ´maestros del minimalismo.´ The advertising posters had been showing four […]
PLAY IT ON PICASSO´S MANDOLIN Guy Clark´s Boats To Build album itself, when first released in 1982, caused me a great deal of confusion. I had always loved Guy´s songs of dust trails and freeways and of crazy characters and their complicated relationships but this album took me in directions I wasn´t then ready to […]
´MY LIFE AND MY ART WERE BORN BY THE SEA´. Exclusive interview for all across the arts Russian pianist, Natalia Nicolaeva – March 2020 As I knew nothing at all about either Iya Zhmaeva or Natalia when my wife and I and two friends stumbled into into a small concert room in Tias on an […]
SWAN LAKE AT THE LOWRY UNTIL 7TH MARCH I was working with SpiralDance a few years ago, as creative writing facilitator on a project with disaffected and disengaged children in what was then a deprived area of Rochdale MBC. It had been a funded project and somehow we had some money left over at the […]
SMALL BOY TALL WHERE RAP MEETS JAZZ We had a couple of computer screens, carrying adverts, news, programme reminders and, often, calls to prayer, as well as two microphones and our own downloaded playlists. We presented from a tiny back street studio in Deeplish in Rochdale to a mainly Muslim audience. It was a surprise […]
Engendering Sex – By Michael Higgins Dialect and Discrimination at Touchstones in Rochdale Imagine the howls of protest that would ensue if a museum or art gallery announced they were excluding girls from an artistic survey of changing patterns of language or ‘dialect’ in any town in Britain. Imagine if the reason for it was […]
SHAPING OUR THINKING Sincretismo; press viewing; Cic El Almacen, Arrecife 2020 Cic El Almacen further demonstrate its versatility as an arts centre by hosting a recently-opened, intriguing and thought provoking visual arts exhibition, that will remain in situ until April 25th. Sincretismo, by the Lanzarotean sculptor Rigoberto Camacho, collects his latest production of works, which, […]
CHASING THAT RHYME Most poetry lovers in the UK will be well aware of the impact the annual National Poetry Day celebrations have in raising the profile of poetry, introducing young people to the pleasure of reading, writing listening to and performing poetry, and in providing a platform for established and emerging poets alike to […]
MAKING NEW FRIENDS THROUGH MUSIC A review. We tend to ignore the first minute of any phone calls from Maigret Marguerita as she is usually so excited we can´t follow a word she is saying, but after a while the story unfolded. She had seen a poster in Tias about a concert of piano and […]
Guitarras en Haria Festival Internacional; review There were no signs at 4.00 pm that this was yet the case, and with the gala concert not scheduled to start until 7.00 pm we had time to dip into Arietta for omelette and chips and a coffee. Later, queuing outside El Aljibe de Haria, we realised that […]
SIDETRACKS & DETOURS: 7 / 12 / 25 classical, jazz, folk, rock, americana; songwriters & invisible angels7th December 2025 - 7:00 am
SIDETRACKS & DETOURS Pass It On 2/11/2025 Jenny Bray, Nash and Asher, Opus 222nd November 2025 - 7:00 am
A LITTLE BUNDLE OF SUMMER. sidetracks & detours 3rd September 2025 featuring Jazz Artist, Jenny Bray. Broadcaster and writer, Steve Bewick, Expo Folk and Sound Roots3rd September 2025 - 7:00 am