Preview By Gay Pirrie Weir

January

PREVIEW

Neil Maya and Philip Clouts tell the Charlie Parker Story at Lyme Regis’ Marine Theatre

The Charlie Parker Story

LYME REGIS CHARLIE Parker, known as “Bird”, was one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time, leaving a legacy that continues to resonate, nearly 70 years after his tragically early death at the age of 34. That legacy is celebrated in a concert at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, on Sunday 15th January.

Philip Clouts, the theatre’s resident jazz pianist, and star saxophonist Neil Maya tell the Charlie Parker Story in a special Jazz in the Bar event. Hear the music and story of the alto saxophonist who created a new genre in jazz, bebop, with fast tempos, virtuosic technique and advanced harmonies.

The two musicians will recreate some of Charlie’s finest compositions as well as some great jazz standards that he brought to prominence. In between numbers Neil will talk about Charlie’s eventful and troubled short life and the influence he had on jazz.

Saxophonist Neil Maya plays in many jazz bands including the Drat Pack, All Jazzed Up, the nationally touring Magnificent Buble, and his own quartet. He has been praised for his“electrifying performance with crisp melody lines and improvisation.”

Listen out for many of Charlie Parker’s most famous compositions and recordings including Ornithology, Yardbird Suite, Now’s the Time, Blues For Alice, Cherokee and more.

Miles Davis once said: “You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker.”

Welsh stand-up in Dorset

LYME REGIS WELSH stand-up comedian Robin Morgan comes to Lyme Regis Comedy Club at the Marine Theatre on Friday 20th January, heading a line-up that includes a fellow native Welshman, David Arnold and the club’s resident host, Tom Glover.

Robin Morgan has appeared on comedy favourites Mock

The Week (BBC Two), The News Quiz, The Now Show (BBC Radio 4) and co-created Ellie Taylor’s Safe Space (BBC Radio 4). He also created and starred on topical panel show What Just Happened? (BBC One). He stars in Kenneth-Branagh-starring drama This England (Sky Atlantic).

He has performed four solo shows at the Edinburgh Festival, his debut in 2016 received glowing reviews.

David Arnold now lives in the West Country and is one third of the Plymouth Comedy Tours team that hosts a “funny city” tour around the historic naval town.

Another Kanneh-Mason prodigy

DORCHESTER THE Kanneh-Mason clan is a uniquely talented family of young musicians, led by pianist Isata and cellist Sheku, who are already familiar from solo

Sonic Silents celebrates the genius of silent film director Frank Borzage

appearances and concerto performances in major concert halls and at the Proms.

Now, their sister Jeneba, also a pianist, comes for a concert with Dorchester Arts on Friday 29th January at the Corn Exchange at 8pm.

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason is already captivating audiences with her mature performances and interpretations. She recently made her BBC Proms debut with the Chineke! Orchestra, performing the Florence Price Concerto and was heralded by the press as “demonstrating musical insight, technical acuity, and an engaging performing persona.”

Jeneba was a keyboard category finalist in BBC Young Musician 2018, winner of the Murs du Son Prize at the Lagny-Sur-Marne International Piano Competition in France in 2014, and the Nottingham Young Musician 2013. She won the Iris Dyer Piano Prize at the Royal Academy of Music, Junior Academy, where she studied with Patsy Toh.

The sounds of silents

WINTERBORNE STICKLAND FRANK Borzage was one of the most distinctive of the early Hollywood directors. In an absorbing and poignant glimpse of a bygone time, two of his silent movie ‘shorts’ are brought vividly to life with an original score performed by Sonic Silents, at Winterborne Stickland’s Pamela Hambro Hall on Saturday 21st January.

The Pitch o Chance and The Pilgrim are adventure films that evoke a world of hobos, travelling men, cowboys and adventurous women, and the moral and practical dilemmas to which their precarious lives lead them.

Sonic Silents are a trio of old-time country and bluegrass musicians featuring Kate Lissauer, champion fiddler and leader of The Buffalo Gals, Leon Hunt, widely regarded as the best five-string banjo player in the country, and Jason Titley, one of the UK’s finest bluegrass guitarist.

The films offer an absorbing and poignant glimpse of a bygone time and of the creative forces that shaped the film-making industry.

Sonic Silents will also be at Studland village hall on Sunday 22nd; both events start at 7.30pm.

I saw Elvis down the village hall

SANDFORD ORCAS & BUCKLAND NEWTON SPITZ & Co, whose previous visits to Dorset have been characterised by eccentric and hilarious ventures into Roman life and grand French melodrama, are back with a new comedy, The Elvis Show, on a short Artsreach tour to Sandford Orcas village hall on Friday 13th January and Buckland Newton village hall on Saturday 14th.

Award-winning Elvis impersonator Joe Reeve stars in his own version of the classic Elvis film Blue Hawaii. Assisted by his over-enthusiastic tour manager, Josephine Cunningham, he creates a musical comedy which will leave you all shook up.

Expect the usual Spitz mayhem and lots of audience interaction, plus all your favourite Elvis song. Dig out your best Hawaiian shirt and escape to Paradise!

The show is also at the Allendale Centre at Wimborne on Sunday 15th January. All performances begin at 7.30pm.

New BSO residency

YEOVIL THE Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra will have a new Somerset residency at Yeovil’s Octagon Theatre, providing greater access to world-class music for local communities, when the theatre, which is managed by South Somerset District Council, reopens after a £29m transformation to become a flagship cultural venue for the South West.

As resident orchestra, local audiences will have access to more symphonic performances by the BSO and its international conductors and soloists, alongside more family-friendly BSO On Your Doorstep chamber-scale concerts, workshops and events.

The partnership will see a regular concert series at the venue alongside an exciting and ambitious education and outreach programme designed to bring world-class musical opportunities to residents and visitors of Somerset.

The theatre plans include increasing the number of seats from 622 to 900, with vastly improved acoustics in the main auditorium and additional performance and participatory spaces. There will also be an arts engagement outreach programme that will create more opportunities for people to engage and benefit from the creative arts through schools, performances, workshops, regular classes and special projects that will focus on those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Octagon theatre manager, Adam Burgan said: “I am absolutely delighted that we can announce this partnership with the amazing Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. As one of UK’s best loved orchestras it will be fantastic to make the developed Octagon Theatre their new home in Somerset. Everyone deserves the opportunity to listen, watch and be inspired by music. Work with BSO’s amazing Participate team will create more opportunities for our communities to have access to and be enriched by BSO’s talented musicians.”

Councillor Mike Best, who is chairman of Somerset Council and South Somerset’s portfolio for health and wellbeing, says: “For too long our residents have had to travel outside of Somerset to experience the type of performances and projects that this partnership will bring.

“Our ambitious and forward-thinking plans to develop the Octagon Theatre into a flagship regional centre of excellence for the arts are already proving to be a catalyst for change with South Somerset designated a ‘priority place’ for Arts Council England. I am thrilled to see this partnership develop, which I hope will be the first of many.”

Following the success of three BSO On Your Doorstep events at Westlands in 2022, there will be more of these concerts, aimed at introducing people of all ages to live classical music in a relaxed environment, as well as schools concerts this year.

Local premiere for Dorset composer

BRIDPORT THE Bridport-based New Elizabethan Singers will give the first public performance of work by a local composer in their concert on 28th January.

Matthew Coleridge’s joyous and melodic Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis will be featured ahead of its inclusion on a CD to be released in February. Also on the programme is Benjamin Britten’s entertaining and dramatic cantata Saint Nicolas. It’s the same saint who became mythologised as Santa Claus but this is the life-story of the historic fourth century Bishop of Myra rather than of the distributor of Christmas presents. Vaughan Williams’ most famous choral works, his ‘Five Mystical Songs’ completes the programme.

The concert, at St. Swithun’s Church, Bridport starts at 7pm on Saturday, 28th January. Tickets and more information at thenewelizabethansingers.org.uk

Comedy at the Corn Exchange

DORCHESTER WE are all going to need some laughs in the New Year, with the way the world is going, so look out for Mike Wozniak with Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on