ILLUSTRATOR Gabrielle Parker’s delightful, surreal and whimsical creations will be celebrated at this year’s Arts by the Sea, the South West’s biggest free celebration of art, culture, people and place, returning to Bournemouth from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th September. Gabrielle Parker, the 2025 Artist in Residence, is an Arts University Bournemouth graduate, who creates…
LOVERS of early and baroque music are in for an absolute treat with the first Salisbury Musick early music festival, from 3rd to 5th October, at some beautiful and unusual venues, ranging from Fovant Chapel to Salisbury’s magnificent St Thomas’s Church. The new festival, which brings together many talented local musicians and some visiting professionals,…
SOMERSET Art Weeks returns from 13th to 28th September with an enthralling range of art works by painters, printmakers, sculptors, potters, print-makers and multi-disciplinary creators. From the artists studios at Watchet’s East Quay to a music and sound-scape installation in the atmospheric grounds of Shave Farm, Brewham, there is a dazzling display of the talent…
THE dramatic Jurassic Coast provides a unique backdrop for the annual Shute Festival, based in West Dorset and East Devon. Throughout its ten years, it has focused on celebrating the natural world, the environment and performing and literary arts. This year’s festival is based at the Marine Theatre and the Peek Chapel, in Lyme Regis…
DORSET’s famous Cerne Giant had a colourful companion for a few hours when Consequences, a huge temporary artwork was installed next to the enigmatic carving in the chalk downs above Cerne Abbas. Consequences was created by artist Becca Gill’s Radical Ritual company with the input of local community groups as part of Nature Calling, an…
THERE are often depressing reports of the declining numbers of children and young people who are reading books – but the popularity of the Bath Children’s Literature Festival (this year from 26th September to 5th October) does give ground for hope. There will be fierce competition for tickets to the amazing line-up of children’s authors…
PURBECK International Chamber Music Festival, under its charismatic artistic director, cellist Natalie Clein, returns from 4th to 7th September. With the theme of “Love in all its forms.” The programme starts with Love of the Cello, with Natalie Clein playing works by Bach and Cheryl Frances-Hoad, and Cello: A Journey through Silence to Sound author…
VISITORS to Moors Valley Country Park near Ringwood can enjoy an unusual sound installation, Canopy, created for this year’s Inside Out Dorset festival, until 21st September, by Dorset-based artist Lorna Rees, of Gobbledegook Theatre,. It draws on contributions from a range of people including scientists, artists, folk musicians, arborists and Year 4 children from Malmesbury Park…
THE ancient coastal town of Christchurch, the deep woods of Moors Valley and the dramatic ruins of Corfe Castle provide the backdrop and venues for events and installations across Dorset at this year’s Inside OutDorset festival, which runs from 12th to 21st September across the county. The biennial event is an international outdoor arts festival,…
DORSET’s own folk music stars, Ninebarrow – Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere (pictured) – make a welcome return to Lyme Folk Weekend, appearing at the Marine Theatre on Saturday 30th August at 8pm. The duo, who are patrons of Lyme Folk, are back by popular demand, and will be joined on stage by friends and…