An alchemy of Spanish cantigas, Sophardic songs, legends and dance.

Eclipse

Layal Barr recorders and viol
Joyce Smith
harps and hammered dulcimer
Smok Smoczkiewicz oud
Andrez Tasino percussion
Clare Norburn soprano
Ulises Diaz-Ropero Conda
flamenco singer
Natalia Garcia Huidobro
flamenco and contemporary dance

From the markets of Seville to the monasteries of Galicia; from isolated deserts to the sumptuous delights of the palace.  Join us for a magical afternoon of music, legends in dance from the Medieval, Sophardic and Flamenco traditions.

An exciting fusion of ancient melodies transformed by our own modern musical traditions and backgrounds creates this court of a thousand dreams, where old meets new and east meets west.


"So improvisatory and spontaneous! Very very exciting! We were all at the edge of our seats in a very good way! Sensual and agile."

Catherine Bott
BBC RADIO 3

Presented by The Brighton Early Music Festival

John Wells-Thorpe presents his new book Behind The Façade – An Architect At Large.

Behind the Façade is an architectural autobiography, but it is less about buildings and more about how they are ‘peopled’. The life of a building and what goes on in it carries as much weight as its appearance.

In his wide-ranging career, John Wells-Thorpe has designed more than £65 million worth of building projects in the UK and overseas. Excelling at art from an early age, it was almost natural that John should become an architect, and he studied at the School of Architecture in Brighton before winning an award to study in Rome – where the young student, faced with modern Italian design in a historic city, felt like a child in the world’s best toy shop.

Work in all five continents over the following years included a ‘relocatable church’, a TV studio in the Arabian desert, financial headquarters abutting St Paul’s Cathedral and an environmental impact study for a mangrove swamp in Malaysia. Dealing with Margaret Thatcher, Donald Soper, Anita Roddick,. Sir Kenneth Clark, Cleo Laine, The Duke of Gloucester and Margaret Atwood along the way, John Wells-Thorpe has encountered many characters, and shares his impressions of them with wit and vivid observations.

The sound of Astillero is forceful, vertiginous, breathtaking, raw yet sophisticated: a roller-coaster ride of throbbing accents modulating into earth-shattering pianissimos and beyond. Yet this wild sound is entirely hand-made, free of any gimmicks, 100% acoustic: the sound of just wood and strings, brought to searing life by an acute sense for translating the experience of 21st century urban life into new music, built on a solid traditional foundation of Buenos Aires’ tango.

With two European tours in recent years, and a much-talked-about showcase at
last  year's  WOMEX  in  Sevilla,  Astillero  are now fast building an international following. The secret is out, and the word is spreading!

"More  musically  daring  and  athletic than any other Tango Orchestra around." Time Out

www.myspace.com/orquestaastillero


+ Special Guest:
DJ Aaron George (Salsa Brighton)

Presented by Family Entertainments




Tickets Are Available at:
Rounder Records 01273 325440
Resident Records 01273 606312
SeeTickets.com

In a unique memoir that's part Nick Hornby, part Where Did It All Go Right, Alan Davies tells the story of growing up in a house in Essex in the 1980s where the TV was never turned off. While his dad tried to bring up his three children alone, Alan did his best to pursue life outside of the school he labelled 'The House of Fascists and Bullies'. His bedroom walls reflected his changing enthusiasms. From Charlie's Angels to Paul Weller, pictures and posters were put up and pulled down with indecent haste as Alan's interests veered wildly through a list that included Debbie Harry, nicking stuff, Adam and the Ants, tagging the back of bus seats in indelible marker, chicken's lib and Jimmy White. But always football. And always Arsenal.

Warm, personal and laugh-out-loud funny, My Favourite People & Me is both autobiography and nostalgia-fest. 'An attempt,' as Alan outs it, 'to remember what I liked as a boy/youth/idiot and to work out why.' There are also, he promises, 'some pictures . . .'

Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor, best known for starring in the hit BBC series Jonathan Creek and his regular appearances as a panellist on QI. My Favourite People & Me is his first book.

Presented by City books at The Old Market

Portico Quartet forge contemporary jazz with modern classical tendencies. They have created an inimitable sound that has been compared to the work of Ben Allison, Esbjorn Svennson Trio and The Cinematic Orchestra amongst many others.

Central to the sound is a new instrument called the ‘Hang’ (tone similar to the steel pan and gamelan) which in combination with a grounding double bass and intricate drum and saxophone work to creates a style that is all their own.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see this increasingly popular quartet play live as they return six months on for another unforgettable gig at The Old Market!


www.myspace.com/porticoquartet

- MERCURY PRIZE NOMINEES -

Watch SWEET BILLY PILGRIM's performance at the Mercury Prize here

Watch Repeat Coverage:
Don’t miss the extended highlights on BBC2 again on Friday 11 September (11.40pm)

Presented by Family Entertainments




Tickets Are Available at:
Rounder Records 01273 325440
Resident Records 01273 606312
SeeTickets.com

Shirley Williams has spent her life immersed in politics. Her mother was renowned pacifist Vera Brittain and her father, George Catlin, a left wing political activist and philosopher.  Family conversations concerned the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Hitler. Shirley joined the Labour Party when still a teenager and studied at Somerville College, Oxford. After graduation, She began her career as a journalist and studied at Fulbright and Columbia University.

She was elected to Parliament in 1964 and soon  served as shadow Home Secretary. Under James Callaghan she held two cabinet posts at the same time: Education and Paymaster General. Shirley was a victim of the Labour Party’s defeat in 1979 and left the Labour Party, helping to form the SDP.
She became the first SDP MP by winning  the Crosby by-election in 1981. She later became a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Shirley was awarded a life perrage in 1993 and later served as Leader of The Liberal Democrats in The Lords.

Dame Shirley Williams has now written her autobiography 'Climbing The Bookshelves'.


Presented by City books at The Old Market


Please Note:
The date for this event has changed from Monday 2 November to Tuesday 10 November. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Tickets are available from:
The Old Market Box Office - 01273 736222
City Books - 01273 725306

Diana Athill OBE was born in 1917. Following her graduation from Lady Margaret Hall Oxford in 1939, she worked for the BBC.

After the Second World War she helped Andre Deutch establish his publishing company. As literary editor she worked with some of the most important writers of the 20th century including Philip Roth, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Rhys, Norman Mailer and John Updike.

She made her reputation as a writer with the candour of her memoirs; through her commitment, in her words, 'to understand, to be aware, to touch the truth'.

In a celebration of her life and writing, ‘Life Class’ brings together four of her best-loved memoirs in one volume, spanning her very English childhood, her life and loves during World War II, her publishing career at Andre Deutsch, and her reflections on old age.

Her memoirs are a remarkable testament to an unusual and fully lived life.

Presented by City books at The Old Market


Please Note:
We regret to inform you that unfortunately it has been necessary to cancel this event due to ill health. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Jacqui Dankworth - the imaginative, moving, and adventurous vocalist in concert with her stellar quartet - celebrates the release of ‘Back To You’.

‘Back To You’ is a stunning collection of originals either written or co-written by Jacqui, along with a selection from her favourite songwriters including James Taylor, Sting and Randy Newman.

The daughter of the jazz musician, arranger and composer Sir John Dankworth and the singer Dame Cleo Laine, Jacqui also worked as an acclaimed actress before taking to the stage as a singer.

Now established as one the country’s leading jazz vocalists, Jacqui’s live concert showcases her unique versatility and effortless mastery of a wide spectrum of genres, drawing on folk, soul and blues, as well as her acute sensibility as a songwriter and lyricist.

"One of our finest singers regardless of category ." The Sunday Times

www.jacquidankworth.com

www.myspace.com/jacquidankworth


Presented by The Old Market




Tickets Also Available at:
Rounder Records 01273 325440
Resident Records 01273 606312
SeeTickets.com

What do Postman Pat, Tommy Cooper, Norman Wisdom and George Best have in common with being abandoned in a Costa Rican jungle after a severe bout of flatulence? Indeed how are they connected to trying to buy an Australian brewery just to get a beer, owning twenty-two cars, an American soccer team and Swiss mail-order pornography?

I suppose we have to come clean and volunteer the name of a certain keyboard genius called Mr Richard Wakeman (Rick to his thousands of chums). That said, you’ll then not be surprised that this second volume of wondrous stories elaborates on violinists falling out of trees, being mauled on live TV by a German Shepherd, playing golf with kangaroos, amputations sound-tracked by prog rock classics, a concert played to a solitary canine and signing autographs on the toilet ... And don’t forget severe leg injuries on the set of Mastermind, extreme profanity live on radio at Wimbledon and berating Pike from Dad's Army...

The Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star takes you, the privileged reader, on a trip of absurd excess, a cultural car crash of side-splitting hilarity and an unforgettable glimpse (again) into the life of one of Britain's most legendary showmen, rock stars and all-time great raconteurs.

Come and hear Rick read from and discuss this exciting new book.

Presented by City books at The Old Market

Oska Bright: the international festival of short films made by people with a learning disability. Masterclasses, screenings and awards party. See website for full details.

www.oskabright.co.uk


Tickets Are Available via Phone or Email:
01273 234 734 or
oskabright@carousel.org.uk

Vic Reeves – the only man ever to have met King Kong – sees things just that little bit differently from everyone else. Follow Vic through an irresistible visual romp through his world – from Asparagus to ZZ Top. From literature (Vic has uncovered the real truth about the Bronte sisters), to ornithology (he demonstrates how birds are directly descended from pigs), to engineering (Vic reveals how the design for the bouncing bomb was inspired by a toilet roll) to palelontology (did you know that 'Bron-to-saurus' in fact means 'Brown-toed-frog')? Vic Reeves leaves no stone unturned in his Vast Book of World Knowledge.

Vic Reeves’ Vast Book of World Knowledge is an education – with pictures! – a revelation, a celebration, a pontification, and an entirely magnificent aberration ...Prepare to go where no-one has been before – prepare to enter the world of Vic Reeves ...

JAMES ‘JIM’ RODERICK MOIR, more commonly known as Vic Reeves, was born in Leeds. He is most famous for his work alongside Bob Mortimer, in TV shows including Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out, The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer, and the comedy quiz show Shooting Stars. Although primarily known as a comedian, Jim Moir is also a successful artist. His artwork has featured in his television shows and he exhibits regularly around the world. He lives in Kent.

Presented by City books at The Old Market

Relentlessly dodging definition, Mercury music prize nominees Led Bib are both a maverick jazz band and an unlikely rock quintet; “a hands-down triumph” said The Independent, “…a gale of fresh air” wrote The Guardian and the group were described as “The future of jazz” by The Times

The group pride themselves on side- stepping convention, with incendiary results. They have together torn apart the jazz world with their avant-jazz-euphoric-rock explosions of improvisation. And whilst fun may not be something which often comes to mind in relation to jazz, it’s the addition of this playfulness that has over years seen Led Bib throw out any jazz preconceptions and entice a whole new army of supporters to the genre. Combining the energy and passion of a rock outfit with the technical ability of trained jazz musicians their effect is exhilarating.

"Rarely have two saxes, keyboard, bass and drums sounded so dangerous yet so compelling" Observer Music Monthly ****

"...one cool mutha of a death-jazz-cum-math-punk-freakout, as if Mike Patton had his wicked way with John Zorn"
Time Out

www.myspace.com/ledbib

- MERCURY PRIZE NOMINEES -

Watch LED BIB's performance at the Mercury Prize here

Presented by Family Entertainments

Oliver Heath - Violin
Cerys Jones - Violin
Gary Pomeroy - Violin
Christopher Murray – Cello

“The Heath Quartet displayed a rare musicality....A keen interpretive insight combined with refined playing, this is one of the most interesting young quartets I have heard in recent years.”

- Young Concert Artists Trust -

Music and rhythm forms a soundtrack to our lives. We spend an evening exploring the connection between music and spirituality.

Bar opens 6.30pm

Presented by Beyond Church