Next month, folk singer Nancy Kerr will curate a series of events at London’s Kings Place exploring dialogues that spring from our environment and our relationships with, and within it, through literature, music, and song.
These special concerts see the finest of contemporary folk music performers in partnership with some of our time’s most insightful writers. Shared themes of transformation are filtered through ecological narratives to stories of loneliness, grief and the redemptive power of nature and community.
See Her Fly Home: Helen Macdonald with Nancy Kerr & The Sweet Visitor Band
Thursday, 1 December 2016 – 7:30pm / Hall One
Kicking the first event off on December 1st is Helen Macdonald, author of H for Hawk, (winner of the Costa Prize and the Samuel Johnson Prize) – Helen’s story of adopting and raising one of nature’s most vicious predators, while struggling with grief at the death of her father. It’s a book about memory, nature and trying to reconcile death with life and love.
Joining Helen is Nancy Kerr and the Sweet Visitor Band.
Lyrics, though, are only part of the Sweet Visitor experience, listen attentively to the instrumentation and more treasures abound. John Whally. Read the full live review here.
Read our latest interview with Nancy Kerr here.
On Common Ground: Rob Cowen with Simpson Cutting Kerr
Friday, 2 December 2016 – 7:30pm / Hall One
Rob Cowen is the author of Common Ground, a book that offered an enthralling new way of writing about nature and our experiences within it. It also inspired the title track of Nancy’s latest album Instar which we reviewed here.
Simpson Cutting and Kerr should need no introduction, whilst they are each accomplished soloists in their own right, their coming together in 2015 saw the release of one of the best folk albums of the year.
By anybody’s standards it’s a top-notch album by three of our best musicians and, if there’s any justice in this world, will soon find its way into the collections of all self-respecting fans of folk music. Helen Gregory. Read her full review here.
Breaking the Spell of Loneliness: George Monbiot and Ewan McLennan
Saturday, 3 December 2016 – 7:30pm / Hall One
The final event is one which the fruits of collaboration have already been tasted…author and journalist George Monbiot and Scottish guitarist, troubadour, balladeer and storyteller Ewan McLennan recently brought us ‘Breaking the Spell of Loneliness’ which was a Featured Album of the Month on FRUK. The origins of the project can be found in an article that George wrote for The Guardian on the personal and social effects of loneliness, it instantly went viral.
The eloquence of both George Monbiot and Ewan McLennan in raising these issues says far more than any music critic can. Breaking the Spell of Loneliness doesn’t merely tackle the issues raised, it offers solutions; it offers hope. It’s a moving, thought-provoking work that has relevance for all of us. Neil McFadyen. Read the full review here.
Tickets and further details can be found by clicking here.