 |
Miranda Rutter - viola (ex Jabadaw), Emma Reid - fiddle, Lucy Knox - cello and John - fiddle, have teamed up to create a string quartet aimed at interpretting contemporary and traditional music. Look out for more news on this exciting new collaberation. . . "A marvel of musicality: sublime, beautiful, intense and passionate!" Karen Tweed "Seriously stylish playing that's putting the sparkle back into the tradition." |
|
 |
English Acoustic Collective - EAC Touring in December with the Christmas Champions show, featuring storytellar Hugh Lupton, and Olivia Ross.
“Sheer unflustered brilliance...It all feels so solid, so ROOTED...the EAC make the tunes sing, dance and breath. I love it!" |
|
 |
A narrative crammed with music, dance and song. An evening that brings the rich diversity of traditional annual customs into full-throated, fine-fettled life. A Life in the Year is an ‘around the sun in a 80 minutes’ (or so) ramble through the wealth of glorious music, song and dance that marks and punctuates the English seasons. Three spirited performers tell stirring tales, unearth beautiful truths and divulge a few fibs! Saul Rose, John Dipper and Laurel Swift raise questions and hunt for reasons why we have such fantastic all singing- all dancing ways to celebrate our way through the calendar. Where do carols come from? How do you make a tradition? Who started morris dancing first?! A Life in the Year bathes the ordinary in a new light and stirs curiosity and surprise about the many secret elements of our year. |
|
 |
Xam Xam is the brainchild of Musa Mboob, master drummer and a member of Boka Halat. The aim of the project was to spend time in The Gambia bringing together a group of musicians living in England with a number of Gambian musicians from different tribes. The project involved seven musicians form the UK along with musicians from the Jola, Karoninka, Mandinka and Wollof tribes. The Xam Xam project is now being developed in thr UK, with the first performance will be in Brighton on the 31st of March. |
|
 |
Performance at the Tolbooth - Stirling on Friday 20th of October. John's compositions can be found on the albums: Flat Earth by Patterson Jordan Dipper, Ghosts by the English Acoustic Collective, Martyn Wyndham-Read's SongLinks 2, the John Dipper Band E.P. and Jim Causley's Fruits of the Earth. John has been invited to write a 12-15 minute composition which will be performed at the Distil Showcase on 20th October at the Tolbooth in Stirling. A proposal was put forward to Distil to investigate the possibilities of drone based music where the drone maybe continuous, but not necessarily consistent. The composition is based upon the gradual evolution of the village where John spent his childhood, and uses violin, viola, border pipes, piano accordion, piano and clarinet.
|
|
 |
Two outstanding instrumentalists, composers, arrangers and tutors who share a love of music - specifically English, French and Scandinavian genres. Their music dances with elegance and dexterity, at once touching your soul and enticing laughter. Their musical approach is informed by tradition yet crucially breaks convention and takes acoustic music into a new realm! |
|
 |
E.P. has sold out - watch this space. . . Traditional ballads and tunes are interwoven with new and exciting compositions! Fiddles, voice, English-bagpipes, melodeon, concertina, piano, clarinet and whistles blend seamlessly to form a distinctive and compelling sound. Traditional dance music and song with lush fiddle harmonies, rhythmic drive and passion! The John Dipper Band is a member of the Musicians in Residence scheme, supported by funding from Arts Council England. |
|
 |
Morris offSpring and the English Acoustic Collective are currently touring the ON ENGLISH GROUND show. . . “Morris
Offspring...now this is something really special...the sheer grace
and energy of these young dancers, with their stylish whites and
subtle ribbons on their shoulders is quite startling.”
|
|
 |
Martyn
Wyndham-Read & No Man's Band Working with Iris Bishop and Gary Holder accompanying Martyn. John has recently recorded and mixed the latest album - 'Oceans in the Sky'. . . John is also involved in the SongLinks projects - SongLinks 1 features English songs and their Australian variants. SongLinks 2 shows the links between English and American songs. |
|
 |
Playing for Morris Last year, John had the privilage of playing for Chris Taylor, a very talented dancer and student on the Newcastle University Folk Degree course. The combination of John's playing, Chris' dancing, and the absolute synchronisation between the two enabled them to win first prize in last year's John Gasson Solo Jig compeition. |
