Blues explosion at Belvoir Players!

Blues guitar legend Ronnie Greer is a milestone in the Irish blues scene, his distinctive guitar style, merging Chicago blues with elements of bebop jazz, has been critically acclaimed as world class. Ronnie brought his current 5 piece line up to the concert in Belvoir Players: singer/guitarist Anthony Toner, keyboard wizard John McCullough, Alan Hunter on bass and Colm Fitzpatrick on drums.

 

 A blues guitar workshop preceded the concert, with blues guitar virtuoso Ronnie playing the sizzling slide guitar and Anthony showing how to perform the blues guitar…

With a repertoire featuring everything from classic gutbucket Jimmie Reed right up to Robben Ford and Steely Dan, the Ronnie Greer Blues Band is at the peak of its powers.

The concert was absolutely brilliant, with electrifying blues and roots music filling in Belvoir Players, but unfortunately there was a small audience – Culture Night was on in Belfast and apparently it stole the scene to our blues night!

 

Anthony Toner & Ronnie Greer

International Peace Day Festival

A jump to the continent and beyond – the first International Peace Day held in Castlereagh on 21st September proved to be a great success! This year the global relations arts organization, Beyond Skin, have partnered with Forestside shopping Centre, Belfast Metropolitan College and Volunteer Now to organize a series of activities during Peace Week with a festival on Peace Day 21st September at Forestside Shopping Centre.

It was pouring down, but the big marquee in the upper car park of Forestside resisted the heavy rain and the strong wind…until a ray of sunshine brightened the day!

 

The marquee held an international market with food stalls and more – from Indian curry to Nepalese vegetables, from Italian tarts to French crepes….the Chinese and African stalls displayed their own arts and crafts; Volunteer Now, Beyond Skin and Castlereagh Borough Council did their bit with their representative stalls, and community artists filled in the free spaces: children and young people enjoyed painting a wall using the medium of graffiti art, some of them experimented Polish arts and craft and others played some African music…

 

The inflatable stage hosted various international bands; the inflatable cinema was a great experience for younger and older kids, who also enjoyed the Old Skool Sports Day and all the other activities planned for the day!

In the meantime, other activities took place throughout the day in the Shopping Mall and Outlets, such as the samba band - parade with the Mayor of Castlereagh, activities stalls and arts and craft workshops.

It was a great day and we hope to be involved in another International Peace Day next year!

Noel McMaster in Concert

After the summer break, First Friday concerts are back! The last performance before the August break saw Anthony Toner playing James Taylor for the anniversary of the album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon; we’ve started our autumn series with a concert by Noel McMaster, one of Northern Ireland’s best known folk musicians. Founding member of the famous Bakerloo Junction folk group in 1974, he’s been on the Northern Irish folk music scene for almost 40 years!

The duo performed a mix of folk classics such as Molly Malone and of course music from their own repertoire as My Lagan Softly Flowing… a good crowd sang along a few songs, among the audience there was a group from Mount Oriel Day Centre, who enjoyed the concert a lot!

We hope to have good audience participation to our autumn events like we did last year! Check out the blog for info and details about Arts events in the borough!

Well well well…Anthony Toner in concert!

 A very good crowd gathered in the Civic centre to listen to one of the best musicians around: Anthony Toner charmed the audience performing James Taylor’s album Mud Slide Slim. He started the show with a short selection of his own songs, followed by the 13-song collection which makes up Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon – the album’s celebrating its 40 years this year!

 

Anthony performed also his song ‘Well Well Well’, which has been selected as the featured background music in the UTV weather bulletin, sponsored by The Progressive Building Society.

 

He interacted with the audience in between songs, telling them that lately he’s been working on a series of instrumentals for an art exhibition coming up later this year. This work has been challenging but very interesting and stimulating for him, who usually works with lyrics and structures…

Anthony’s reviews are amazing, he’s been described by Trevor Hodgett in the Rock’n’Reel Magazine as ‘melodically satisfying and lyrically literate, original and perceptive…rewards concentrated listening’; and Wildy Wildy’s World wrote ‘The Duke of Oklahoma & Other Stories is an incredibly nuanced and mature work, where the story-telling and music are of equal importance and impact. Make sure you take some time and get to know Anthony Toner. I have a feeling that Belfast isn’t big enough to hold him for much longer.’

We’ve been very proud to have Anthony as our guest on the First Friday concert in July, and we hope to have him in front of our audience again!!

A Literary Feast in Castlereagh: 2nd Sam Hanna Bell Festival

A festive celebration to commemorate the life and work of novelist, broadcaster and short stories writer Sam Hanna Bell took place in Castlereagh Civic Offices from 15th to 20th August. The red thread of the festival consisted of a celebration of Joey Tomelty’s work, a great Northern Irish character actor and playwright, who worked in film, television, radio and on stage.

A Poetry Night with Moyra Donaldson and Maureen Boyle was held on 15th August, with the two local poets performing excerpts of poems and explaining their work, their source of inspiration and their motivation to the audience. Maureen’s pieces had an autobiographical feel, while Moyra’s pieces were chosen to highlight different inspirations, such as dreams and 18th century curiosities. The atmosphere was very relaxed and enjoyable.

A Writers’ Surgery followed on Tuesday 16th with writer Anne Harris as ‘surgeon’ ready to operate in Forestside! That was a great opportunity for writers to have their work viewed and to receive some hot tips about how to progress in writing, offering insights on a one-to-one basis. Anne cajoled and teased out some nice ideas with writing enthusiasts.

A Fiction Night took place on Wednesday 17th August, with guests David Lewis, Sheena Wilkinson and Bernie McGill, all awardees of the Arts Council NI ACES Programme. Each of these brilliant writers read a chapter or a short story from their books or recent published collections, followed by Q&A at the end. They also explained how they became writers, what led them to follow the creative path and let the literature fill up their lives. Bernie read an excerpts from her book The Butterfly Cabinet, followed by David who read a couple of his short stories, and Sheena reading her latest book Taking Flight – which had a great success at the Bistro Children’s Book the Year Award in Dublin, winning the Bistro Honour Award for Writing and the Children’s Choice Award.

 

On Friday and Saturday Festival Lectures about Joe Tomelty and Sam Hanna Bell concluded the Festival. Roma Tomelty discussed her fathers’ achievements and legacy. The McCooeys, one of the most famous families in Belfast history, made an appearance too!

Saturday opened with a rehearsed reading of Tomelty’s The Elopment performed by Richard Millis, Roma Tomelty, Alex McClay, Hannah Devlin and Conor Maguire. It is a powerful piece of writing, with love, death, insanity and much more. Hannah’s ‘Molly’ was engaging and sympathetic; Richard Mills gave a sterling performance as a slippery, sleazy ‘no floostering’ Kilty, Roma’s cold-hearted Rebecca was unrelenting, while Alex delivered a haunting Uncle Matthew. Q&A with Roma Tomelty and a lecture by Sean McMahon, writer of Joe’s biography, followed. The Festival was brought to an end with a lovely reading from Joe’s only novel.

Let’s hope the Festival continues and grows in terms of participation next year!



Drumming Workshop with Stevie Shanks

Castlereagh Arts was proud to offer his residents a great opportunity to improve their musical dexterity and have a bit of fun on a drumming taster session with Stevie Shanks!

Stevie Shanks is the drummer for Flash Harry, the UK and Europe’s best known Queen tribute band who has been playing for more than 20 years to audiences from Belfast to Atlantic City and Dublin to Dubai.

He came to Castlereagh to give our drum aficionados some hot tips and a valuable insight into drumming. He explained the aspiring drummers the basics in playing the drum, and then everyone gave it a try…

Mabel was very enthusiastic and didn’t want to leave the seat to the next participant, Sean, James and Betty were brilliant, and even our very own Arts Assistant Priscilla gave it a go! The participants didn’t want to leave the Civic centre…they all agreed that one-hour taster session was too short and they suggested to have another drumming session which would last at least two hours! We’ll see what we can do, and we’ll keep you posted…

                               

A School that Rocks!!

Another year, another great Rock & Pop School! Every year Castlereagh Borough Council in partnership with Castlereagh Community Safety Partnership and SEELB offers young people the opportunity to be involved in music classes with professional musicians and tutors. Now on its 9th edition, the Rock & Pop School proves to be an enriching experience and a great opportunity for young aspiring musicians!

The first week was dedicated to the Advanced group, a group of young experienced musicians who formed 4 bands and wrote and recorded 2 songs each! The second week was Beginners’ week, for the less experienced musicians…they formed 3 bands and recorded one song each…this year we had also one group from Dreamscheme taking part in the second week, they were great! The tutors from Making Music Workshop, among whom we had John Wilson, Linley Hamilton and Simon McBride, did a great job helping out the bands in writing the songs and stimulating them in practicing continuously in order to improve and perform better.

After two weeks of hard work, the big day arrived: the bands had to perform on Friday 5th August at Belvoir Players Studio. There was some nervousness, stage fright and excitement in the air! The Mayor of Castlereagh thanked everyone for their efforts and for having put so much in the Rock & Pop weeks; Linley Hamilton was the official compere of the afternoon, introducing the bands and telling the audience some funny jokes about the Rock & Pop weeks. Here’s the line-up of the concert:

- Acoustic Haze with Clear your Mind and Robot

- Greedy Eye with But it’s You

- Swallion Battalion with Life isn’t Easy

 

- Elemno P with Good Day

- No Vacancy with Don’t and My Downfall,

- Switch it Off with Tonight and Cos you Said,

- The Royal Scam with Fire and Hypnotized

 

 

 

In addition, one of the talented young musicians, Chris Rooney, surprised us all with a cover song by Rory Gallagher, one of his favorite musicians.

The concert was a great success, all the young Rock & Poppers performed brilliantly like professional musicians! The audience was really impressed and couldn’t stop clapping! Everyone left Belvoir Players super satisfied and with a smile on their face, still humming some tunes they listened to in the concert…