Ruth Bratt is a founding performer of the improvising musical troupe, Showstopper! She spills all about facing fear, the volcanic ash and …cheese….

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The show must go on! Has anything ever stopped Showstopper from going on?
“We had just started a show in Greenwich once when there was a power cut – the theatre was plunged [...]

News just in that Ayanna Witter-Johnson has sold out Darlington and London dates already. Make sure you don’t miss your chance to catch the captivating star in Harrogate. Ayanna is a composer, jazz vocalist, cellist and pianist who has developed musically from a diverse background of mixed cultures. Her compositional versatility includes writing for symphony [...]

Take a bite out of the Big Apple this summer. Temperatures seem to be rising as the sunshine finally kicks in, but one thing that’s guaranteed to get you hot under the collar, rain or shine, is America’s next big thing: Peter Cincotti.
The 25 year-old native New Yorker is sweeping into Harrogate on July 27 [...]

Missed Glastonbury this year? Or maybe you want the outdoor festival experience with access to decent public loos? Have no fear, the Harrogate Festival is here offering a weekend of laid back world and contemporary music in a PapaKåta style tent.
On Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July the Festival’s New Music New Venues initiative kicks [...]

Check out the latest review for Oddsocks in The Stage magazine!
 
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Published Monday 28 June 2010 at 12:20 by Pat Ashworth
Oddsocks must be one of the cheeriest companies in Britain, a band of strolling players who have fun with their audience even in the interval. Their stage is a lumbering old wagon with [...]

“I almost fell off my seat!” Classical Source Review exclaimed after witnessing the young pianist Sasha Grynyuk at work. “Here was a young pianist using exquisite, totally natural, rubato,” the reviewer continued, “indeed the hands were actually out of sync, the left leading the right – marvellous old-world pianism that Alfred Cortot would have admired.”
Yamaha [...]

Christine Tobin is a jazz singer who inspires the most powerful rhetoric. Lionel Shriver (the Orange prize-winning author) described her as “sexy, gutsy, bluesy and beautiful”. Other adjectives that litter her reviews: eclectic, experimental, dreamily evocative. Writing in The Guardian, the British editor, critic and composer John L Walters took this praise to vertigo-inducing [...]

The local but globally crucial charity Yorkshire Cancer Research have linked with the Festival’s leading attraction this year, author Alan Bennett.
Miss Clair Challenor-Chadwick, Head of Marketing and Fundraising said: “Yorkshire Cancer Research is delighted to be working with the festival this year and in particular Alan Bennett. Like Alan, all of us have personal stories [...]

Can’t bear to drag yourself away from the box? Not even for some of the world’s most inspirational artists, musicians and writers? Well the Harrogate Festival is offering all of you square eyes something really special – a giant movie screen at the bottom of Montpellier Hill.
It’s a chance to watch some absolute classic films [...]

ARE YOU BOLD AS BRASS?
An exhilarating new venture for Harrogate International Festivals – Bold As Brass – will capture the local history of brass bringing new music by aspiring young composers to the town with the opportunity for a different performance on each night of the Festival. We are seeking vibrant, lively and energising compositions [...]