SOMERSET-based author Jasbinder Bilan has followed up her Costa Children’s Book Award-winning debut novel with a delightful new story, which similarly draws on her family background in India close to the Himalayas. Jasbinder came with her family to the UK when she was still barely a toddler, but although they lived in a big city…
WINDROSE, the rural media charity, has set up an innovative project that combines live singing and old films, provided by internet technology for people in Wiltshire who are living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Folk singer and song collector Amanda Boyd worked with Alzheimer’s Support Wiltshire to deliver interactive Zoom sessions, which included fascinating old footage…
SOMERSET photographer Jason Bryant’s new exhibition of photographs from the lockdown should have been at the Museum of Somerset, but is available online instead. Reaching for Rainbows: the Lockdown Photography of Jason Bryant, on view at swheritage.org.uk, documents an extraordinary time in the history of Somerset. The collection of 60 images chronicles the experiences of…
NEW dates before Christmas have been confirmed for two concerts at Wells Cathedral by the renowned violinist, Tasmin Little. Earlier this month, the internationally renowned musician’s two planned Remembrance Concerts at Wells Cathedral were cancelled due to the second lockdown, so the cathedral authorities are thrilled to report the new dates in December. Tasmin Little…
SHAFTESBURY artist Zara McQueen was looking forward to a joint exhibition at Shaftesbury Arts Centre with fellow North Dorset artist Percy Lizzard, but Covid-19 and the latest lockdown put a stop to it. However Zara and Percy have got together to show some of their new work online for two weeks. Percy is best known…
MUSIC-lovers in Dorset and Somerset missed the annual Sherborne Abbey Music Festival, thanks to the pandemic, but there is good news for fans of the Iuventus String Quartet, who are giving a concert online on Monday 23rd November. Led by Ruth Rogers, from Shaftesbury, the Iuventus Quartet was formed in 2003 and has since excited…
LOVERS of the music of Beethoven were deprived of one of this year’s great events, when the pandemic and the resulting restrictions forced the cancellation of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Beethoven 250 symphony cycle. However, this week there is a treat with the Dorset-based conductor talking about Beethoven each day on BBC Radio 3’s Composer…
TWO of Bristol’s best-known performers are bringing a festive entertainment of fun and mischief to delight children in the BS3 area of the city, from Thursday 3rd to Wednesday 23rd December. Created by Stewart Wright and Lucy Tuck, in association with Tobacco Factory Theatres, BS3 Santa combines street theatre with a travelling Santa’s grotto. The…
FOR acting and production students, being able to attend their places of education is only half of their learning experience – they have to perform and prepare productions for performance. This second lockdown has hit the arts community hard. Just as the Government made grants to venues and companies hit earlier this year, and tentative…
ONE of my favourite things to do is walk in woods, and one of the most magical woods in the country is Wistman’s Wood on Dartmoor. The latest exhibition by The Arborealists, the group of professional artists whose work focuses on trees and forests, is Trees and Woodland on Exmoor and Dartmoor, currently on view…