April 3, 2009

Charity Ceilidh for the Beamsley Project

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Some of us played for a ceilidh last Friday 27th March, at All Saints Hall in Hessle, raising money for a group visiting the Beamsley Project for disabled people.

There were over 100 people there dancing with callers Steve Haswell and Rob Nicklas, respectively on melodion and guitar/vocals and with Angela on flute playing along with Rob’s vocals. 

The stage was full of musicians too - so thanks to Heather, Hannah, Angela, Rob, Steve, Gordon, Jill and Colin for making a good sound (and thanks to Rob also for the PA).

 The night raised £350. 

A big thank you to all that came, enjoyed and contributed and especially to Anne Wilkinson who organsied it all!

 

October 19, 2008

Big National Ceilidh last night for WaterAid

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A massive thank you to all that came to the ceilidh and merrily danced the night away supporting the charity WaterAid as part of the Big National Ceilidh day event.  We all had a fab time and really enjoyed the night!

We had 134 (give or take 1 or 2) people dancing at 10pm to the Circassian Circle dance and the night raised £670 for WaterAid!!!  Here are a few photos of the night…

       

         

 

September 13, 2008

Saturday 18th October – BIG NATIONAL CEILIDH DAY

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BIG NATIONAL CEILIDH DAY

This is unashamed advertising for our fund raising community charity ceilidh at

Hessle Town Hall, near Hull on Saturday 18th October 
as part of the Big National Ceilidh Day raising money for Water Aid

It’s for a very worthwhile cause! Please use the ’Contact us‘ page for tickets
Tickets £5 each, no bar so bring your own drinks/booze (cups) and nibbles
Everyone welcome!

 

August 22, 2008

Whitby Folk Festival – Aug 21st 2008

Posted by hessleceilidhband under Fun Stuff, Music Sessions
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Some of us Hull and North Lincs lot did Whitby Folk Festival sessions on Thursday. We got there at about 10.30am and settled down at a cafe at the end of the north cliff area in the town, drank lots of tea, ate some sausage, eggs and beans brunch then played on our instruments.

      

Made John Kirkpatrick’s session in the Middle Earth Pub early afternoon and the 422 session later in the day at the same pub.  Both sessions were different and both great. The pub was full but that didn’t detract from the session – then that’s easy for me to say as I had a seat!

Some of us Hull lot off to Shrewsbury Folk Festival now as I blog – and no doubt will have a good time there.

 

August 15, 2008

Competitive Swingball

Posted by hessleceilidhband under Silly Stuff, The Band
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As a ceilidh band we take rehearsing very seriously – unless the weather is nice and there’s a swing ball tournament to be had. 

So todays rehearsal went well, got covered what we needed to and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden… turns out Liz, the piper, or “Whistling Wainright”, as her Swingball name is, has a killer instinct to win. 

“Scrapey Sean” (his Swingball name - it was all getting a bit silly at this point!), the violin player, bore the brunt of Liz’s brutal swingball skills and lost miserably. 

However “Mart the Bang”, percussionist, beat “Whistling Wainright” backhand – so she melted into a pile of goo.  Losing is not an option for Liz.

Hey ho, a good days work done by all :)

 

July 2, 2008

Session/workshop pictures

Posted by hessleceilidhband under Dancing, Festivals, French, Music Sessions
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Emma, who’s playing bodhran in the session, brought her brother, Matthew Kitchen, along and he kindly took these photo’s of the French and early music session on 22nd June at the Beverley Folk Festival – thanks Matthew!

                                   Sunday morning session

                                                 Shawm

                                                

 

June 25, 2008

French and early music workshop

Posted by hessleceilidhband under Early Music, Festivals, French, Workshop
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We did a workshop/session on French and early music on Sunday morning at Beverley Folk Festival.  We had recorders, accordion, percussion and fiddle with Quentin on gurdy and pipes and me on shawm, we ran through Bear Dance, Branle l’Offical and the old favourite Horses Brawl then we did some French bourrées, a Morvan bourrée and Tricotada.

The session was full and we hopefully passed on some ideas and new tunes to those that went.

To finish with, John aired one of his own compositions (composed in France) and people spontaneously got up to dance – always a sign of a good tune! 

 

June 14, 2008

Barn Dancing

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We did a ceilidh barn dance, in a barn, last Saturday night.  Luckily the weather was kind and the eveing went well with, we think at one point, over 120 dancers on the floor for the dance the ‘Seige of Ennis’.

This dance is the Gay Gordons with Liz piping.

 

May 18, 2008

Ceilidh yesterday

Posted by hessleceilidhband under Dancing, Piping, Wedding
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We did a ceilidh yesterday near York in a village hall in Sutton upon Derwent, a really lovely setting and atmosphere and we all very much enjoyed it as did the wedding guests. 

Liz really “did one” on the bagpipes! - she played for half an hour, really enjoyable (not only because it meant most of the band had some time off) but she really gets into the spirit and gets everyone jollying up there.  Quentin and Martin playing along on the djembe and darabouka made it hard for anyone not to clap along or dance!

Helen’s got some photo’s – will post them up soon. 

 

 

April 11, 2008

Recording last week

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Last week we spent a day in studio recording our own compositions, some romping early music stuff and our ceilidh sets for us to listen to and pick out the good points and see if any better arrangements could be had.

What fun - but hard work!  I think a lot of us hadn’t used our brains quite so intensely for a long time for the hours it took, from 9.30am – 4.00pm!!!  Got a good 11 tracks from it though.  So hopefully we’ll get some clips of it up on the web soon.  Thanks goes to Adam the sound guy who was great.

Quentin gurding, John on accordion and Helen on fiddle.

    

   

 

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