“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.”
— Maya Angelou

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
— Frederick Douglass

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
— Harriet Tubman

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
— Rosa Parks

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr

“It isn’t where you come from; it’s where you’re going that counts.”
— Ella Fitzgerald

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
— Barack Obama

“The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”
— Maya Angelou

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
— Nelson Mandela

“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.”
— Coretta Scott King

“We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right.”
— Aretha Franklin

“History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.
— Michelle Obama

“You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.”
— Medgar Evers

“I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.”
— Rosa Parks

October is Black History Month

New life in old songs

TALENTED folk trio Jon Doran and The Northern Assembly draw on their varied backgrounds to create an evening of traditional folk with a contemporary edge, on a short Artsreach tour, including Cerne Abbas village hall on Thursday 22nd October, Marnhull village hall on Friday 23rd and Broadwindsor’s Comrades Hall on Saturday 24th, all at 7.30pm.

With striking vocals from Jon Doran (BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award Finalist 2019), combined with the virtuosic playing of instrumentalists, Heather Ferrier (accordion) and Jordan Aikin (whistles and pipes), the trio create dynamic songs that combine exhilarating contemporary arrangements with the much-loved traditional folk canon.

This ground-breaking collaboration seeks to capture the excitement that lies within traditional song and breathe new life into old stories from the British Isles by injecting the energy they feel these narratives deserve.

Consciously moving away from the conventional folk song performance style, the three musicians rely upon their dissimilar musical upbringings and experiences to conjure emotions and communicate a story that is deeper than the words of the song.