The Doolichters, Dundee’s oldest boy band ,and big Wighton favourites, will once again bring their own peculiar take on life in their home city of Dundee to the Wighton Centre. As always, there will be great music and songs, great humour and almost certainly a chance to sing along!
Admission £5 (doors open 10.30am)
Bob Knight makes a very welcome return to the Wighton. Aberdonian Bob is a fine and versatile singer, a powerful yet sensitive songwriter, an accomplished instrumentalist and the possessor of a dry sense of humour.
A proud member of the traveller community, the traditional songs and lore of his people inform his work bringing a modern perspective to an ancient culture and a timeless richness to modern themes.
Admission £5
To continue our celebrations of the Wighton Harpsichord’s 40th Birthday The Friends of Wighton are delighted and honoured to welcome one of Scotland’s most distinguished musicians, John Kitchen MBE.
After 27 years as a Senior Lecturer in Music in the University of Edinburgh, having moved there from the University of St Andrews, John Kitchen retired from university teaching, He is an Honorary Fellow in the Reid School of Music and continues as University Organist, as Director of the Edinburgh University Singers, and with the Raymond Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments at St Cecilia’s Hall. John is also Director of Music of Old Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church and Edinburgh City Organist with duties at the Usher Hall. He gives many solo recitals both in the UK and further afield, and also plays regularly with several ensembles covering a wide range of musical styles.
His interest in the harpsichord inspired his doctoral thesis “Harpsichord music of seventeenth century France: the forms, their origins and developments, with particular emphasis on the work of Louis Couperin (1626–1661).
In addition, he is much in demand as a continuo player, accompanist, lecturer, writer, adjudicator and reviewer. John has recorded extensively for both Priory and for the Edinburgh-based label, Delphian Records.
We are very excited that we shall hear him play our lovely harpsichord on Saturday.
Admission is £5 at the door.
Roddy and Kate met 17years ago in West Yorkshire and started playing together. They discovered a mutual passion not only for Irish and Scottish music, but also music from all corners of Europe, playing tunes from Galicia to Scandinavia to the Balkans !
As the duo Zetor in the Kailyard they have played to audiences across Scotland, in pubs, folk clubs and festivals, touring regularly in Europe and the British isles. Their debut album, “Collateral” was recorded in the winter of 2016.
Their music is driven by a passion for Scottish and Irish traditional music and an insatiable curiosity for music from further afield.
The Duo features Roddy Johnston on vocals, guitar, fiddle, pipes, and Kate Badcock on flute, alto sax and backing vocals. Roddy and Kate are now based in Kirriemuir.
Admission £5 at the door
The concert will be followed at 12.30 by a Special General Meeting to which all members, Wighton attenders and well-wishers are invited.
Fromseier & Hockings – (Ditte & Sigurd) a Danish Folk Award winning fiddle/guitar/voice duo from Denmark with songs and tunes. They come from the tiny village called Øksendrup, where they also run a small organic orchard and cidery. Their tunes and songs are inspired by their surroundings and the people in them with voices and instruments intertwining, grooving and moving! https://www.fromseierhockings.com/
The Låtmores – Paul Sinclair (fiddle) and Janeta Österberg (accordion) – a Scottish/Finnish duo with a mix of traditional and modern folk tunes including ones they like people to dance to…! They feature ‘Finlandssvensk Musik’ subculture of Finnish folk music in their repertoire as both Janeta and Paul are part of that community. https://www.facebook.com/the.latmores/
In association with the TMSA (Traditional Music & Song Association of Scotland)
£5 at the door.
Aileen Carr, Barbara Dymock, Janice Reavell
We have all three of them, as harmony trio Choras, at the Wighton Centre on Saturday 1st April, 11am.
Each is a much loved and respected traditional singer in her own right and together they excel. A concert with this acappella trio with their superb harmonies, eclectic selection of songs and sense of fun is not to be missed.
Admission £5 at door
Admission £5 at door
Friends of Wighton are delighted to welcome Carole and Alan Prior, one of the best loved and most respected singing duos in the British Isles.
Carole is a well known and powerful singer who, together with her husband Alan, has been invited to many folk festivals and singing weekends throughout the UK and Ireland. Whilst traditional songs and ballads are her first love, she also enjoys newer compositions in a traditional style, particularly when they convey emotional themes or a good story. She also likes humorous songs as well as dabbling in a bit of song writing and composing tunes for poems. Most notably, her tune for Violet Jacob’s Baltic Street has become a favourite with many other singers.
With a big voice, Alan has drawn his repertoire from diverse areas of song and is well known and respected in many places, appearing together with his wife Carole at quite a few of the festivals and clubs throughout the UK and Ireland and in Ian McCalman’s production of Far Far from Ypres. Alan enjoys traditional style singing, a sprinkling of Burns songs and chooses songs that he enjoys and identifies with from more recent writers.
While each has their own repertoire, they also enjoy singing together in unison and sometimes with a sprinkle of harmony – and a fair bit of humour!
Ian Mc Calman, wrote this about the duo for the biog for Far Far from Ypres :-
Alan and Carole Prior
Alan and Carole are married and sing together beautifully. There are few folk festivals from all over Britain that have not had the pleasure of these remarkable traditional singers. Ian asked them to join the “Pals” and refused to take “no” for an answer.
This year sees the beautiful Wighton Harpsichord’s 40th Birthday and Friends of Wighton will stage several special events to mark the occasion.
Celebrations begin with a double treat! Tim Heilbronn will remember (Time) Travels with My Aunt Annette, the distinguished musician who commissioned the instrument. We will then have a delightful harpsichord and baroque violin recital from The Highlands Duo.
The Highlands Duo began performing together in 2009 in Freiburg, Germany, where violinist Benjamin Shute and harpsichordist Anastasia Abu Bakar were studying at the Hochschule für Musik. The duo has performed at European venues including Schlosskonzerte Bad Krozingen and Schlossfestspiele Marburg and performed at American institutions including the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, Dickinson College, Southeast Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma Baptist University, and Ouachita Baptist University.
Anastasia Abu Bakar studied at the conservatories of Freiburg (BM), Florence, and Frankfurt (MM), She has performed as soloist with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Janus Ensemble Freiburg, Tactus, Oklahoma Virtuosi, and others. Recital appearances include the Museo San Marco (Florence), “Notte Bianca” Festival Florence, Schlosskonzerte Bad Krozingen, and, most recently, Bach’s complete Goldberg Variations at Oklahoma City UniversityShe has also served as a répétiteur for theater and oratorio productions including Scarlatti’s La Colpa, il Pentimento, la Grazia for the 2013 Rheingau Musik Festival. A specialist in the various national styles of basso continuo, she has published realizations for Blavet’s Op. 2 sonatas as well as J. S. Bach’s D-major Sinfonia (BWV 1045) and youthful G-minor fugue for violin and continuo (BWV 1026) though PRB Productions.
Violinist Benjamin Shute began performing on period instruments as a teenager after attending the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute in Ohio. During subsequent studies at the New England Conservatory (DMA, BM) and the conservatories of Freiburg and Frankfurt, he studied with Rainer Kussmaul, Bernhard Forck, Masuko Ushioda, and Lucy Chapman and served as co-founder/director of the New England Conservatory Early Music Society. He has performed internationally on modern and period instruments as chamber musician, soloist with orchestras in the States and Europe in concertos from the 17th to 20th centuries, and concertmaster of ensembles including the Boston Chamber Orchestra, Oklahoma Virtuosi, TACTUS ensemble, and numerous ad hoc modern- and period-instrument ensembles on both sides of the Atlantic.
Tim Heilbronn, oldest nephew of harpsichordist Annette Heilbron (n), graduated in Crop Protection from the University of Bath in 1979, then joined the British Antarctic Survey as Terrestrial Biologist on South Georgie where there are no crops to protect. The environment, however, did prepare him well for the climate of the east coast of Scotland. Where he joined SCRI (now James Hutton Institute) in 1983. Tim joined the University of Dundee in 2007 as SIPR Business Director, retiring in 2019. He is Past President of the Rotary Club of Dundee; Past Charity Convenor of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee; Past Deacon of the Dyers Craft and now spends his time making Haggis- Hunting Whistles
The Wighton Harpsichord is a French double-manual instrument after the C18 maker Nicholas Blanchet. It was commissioned by the distinguished musician Annette Heilbron, a founder member of the National Early Music Association and the Helicon Ensemble, and built by Mark Stevenson, Cambridge 1983 and purchased for the Wighton shortly after the Centre opened.
Since arriving in the Wighton Heritage Centre, the instrument has been kept in tune and good repair by FoW Members, and professional musicians, Simon Chadwick and, currently, Mark Spalding, who is curating the celebration programme.
Scott Gardiner is one of Scotland’s top traditional singers and has been performing at concerts and festivals across the country since his schooldays. Brought up on a flatland farm in historic Forfarshire, he is best known for singing the bothy ballads and songs of the north-east.
Career highlights include representing Scotland at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in the USA; winning the Bothy Ballad World Championship in Elgin; two nominations for Scots Singer of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards and, along with guitarist Johnny Kemp, becoming the first performer to get a Mexican wave going at Dunfermline Folk Club!
Scott combines a love and knowledge of Scots song with a rich melodic voice and mischievous sense of humour – this is an event not to be missed!
Admission £5 at door
“Her music is truly haunting” BBC Radio Scotland
Chloe Matharu is a singer songwriter and harpist from the West Coast of Scotland. A Navigational Officer in the Merchant Navy, she offers an authentic voice for the female seafarer in the folk scene. Her ethereal and innovative music gives a glimpse into the modern mariner’s life, and is truly unique.
Small Voyages is an eight track album of original songs inspired by Chloe’s time at sea as a deck cadet, sailing around the world on oil tankers. The songs are set to an evocative backdrop of Celtic harp music and field recordings of the natural world. Small Voyages is available from Small Voyages | Chloe Matharu (bandcamp.com) and all streaming platforms.
Tickets £5 at the door
