2010 Season

Last website update 22.05.10.

2010 SEASON

Friday September 17th 2010

    Vin Garbutt

£11 including automatic seat reservation

website

WINNER of BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards "Best Live Act" Award 2001

Powerful, hugely moving, warm, humane, inspired, funny and gut wrenchingly honest. These are just some of the superlatives used to describe Vin's performance this year. This international, award winning, singer songwriter is completing  his 40th year on the road. He is for ever in demand and his shows are continually sell outs, so get your tickets early!

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Nominee for "Best Folk Singer" and "Best Live Act" Awards 2001

Winner of BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards "Best Live Act" Award 2001

Honorary Degree of Master of Arts awarded to Vin by Teesside University in 2001 for his music and  his services to the arts and culture of the  area of the North East of England.

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Nominee for "Best Live Act" Award 2007

Friday October 8th 2010

    Ceilidh with The Angels of the North

£11 including automatic seat reservation

Friday November 19th 2010

Flossie - Celebrate the new Beaujolais Nouveau

£11 including automatic seat reservation

website

Flossie Malavialle is a French singer who started getting involved in the British folk scene in 2000-2001 while she was on a teacher exchange in the North East of England.

How it all started...

After 12 years of teaching English full time in secondary schools in the South of France, she decided to apply for a job as a French teacher in England, as she felt it would boost her English to live abroad for a year. She got one in Stockton-on-Tees and was living in Darlington at the time (great part of the world to improve your English, like ).

She had also been singing for years in France before that and that’s why she found it quite natural to turn up at the Darlington folk club one night to meet the locals and sing a song... She didn’t realise then that this was going to be the beginning of a new life in England for her.

And now?

After her exchange was over, she went back to France for a year but she missed the life she had had in England so decided to come back! She is now based in Darlington, does some supply teaching in the area when needed but is mainly focused on her singing.

She has released 8 albums since September 2002, “Thistledown”, “Mistral” (March 2003), “Flossie sings Piaf” (May 2003) , "Making up the miles" in December 2004, "The Wilderness Years" in November 2006, "Flossie sings Brel" in November 2007, "What a wonderful world!" (June 2009) with pianist Michael Mulroy, which is mainly a collection of jazz standards alongside some very famous modern classics and "The Tour Collection" (September 2009) which release coincided with the Show of Hands County Towns Tour in the Autumn of 2009.

What sort of songs does Flossie sing?

Her repertoire is very open as she likes all sorts of different music genres. Her songs include famous numbers, including Allan Taylor's "Roll on the day", Kieran Halpin's "Making up the miles", Colum Sands' "The child who asks why", Starrett and Laird's " John Condon" but also Edith Piaf's eternal favourites "No regrets", "La vie en rose"... or Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam" and "Ne me quitte pas"...

She also loves songs full of energy or, as she calls them herself, full of "vavavoum" such as Bonnie Raitt's "Road's my middle name", Kris Kristofferson's "Bobby McGee" (Janis Joplin way), Marylin Middleton's "Wild women" etc... There's also space for lovely ballads such as Keith Pearson's "More hills to climb" or Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the night" as well as jazzy tunes like "Let's fall in love", "Misty" or "Fly me to the moon".

So even if you have never seen or heard her before, surely there will be something in her repertoire to suit your taste! Flossie is making new friends wherever she sings and is looking forward to seeing you at any of her concerts soon!

Friday December 17th 2010

The Happy Cats Christmas Party

£11 including automatic seat reservation

website

"Take a drop of the Irish, a shot of Cajun, a little country, some folk, a hot spoonful of salsa, a twist of tamla, shake it all up with 30 years of rock ‘n' roll experience, throw in a dash of three part harmony, garnish with lashings of good humour and you have The Happy Cats!"