Holmfirth Arts Festival has a great summer of events lined up … and the next ones are this Saturday.
The festival runs through to September and has just had a highly successful Big Weekend event celebrating diversity with live music.
This year is the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Whit Monday flood in Holmfirth and so this Saturday, July 6, history lovers can attend a walking and heritage event where they can find out more about the flood and hear some stories from the day.
Later on the same day at 7pm join theatre company Mikron at Earthworks New Mill Community Gardens, Sude Hill, New Mill, for a theatre show which takes audiences on a ‘hill-arious ramble through the history of land access in England.’
There’s no actual walking involved for audiences but they are encouraged to bring picnics, blankets and chairs to enjoy the pay-as-you-decide performance.
On Saturday, July 27, the Dana Ali Band, supported by Little and Often, will get crowds up on their feet at St David’s Church Hall in Holmbridge.
Dana Ali is originally from Atlanta, Georgia, and her blend of soul, jazz, blues, R&B, and funk is described as a ‘mesmerising fusion’ of music. Little and Often are a Huddersfield based duo who have worked alongside some big names in rock n roll including Antonio Banderas and The Osmonds.
Images from the Holmfirth Arts Festival Big Weekend by Huddersfield Hub photographer SEAN DOYLE
August is a brilliant month of inspiring live music. On Saturday, August 3, at The Civic there will be a special commissioned double-bill of new music with The River Flows (Holmfirth Song Cycle) created by Good Earth Collective’s songwriter Steve and artist Jan Ansell.
Blending history and local stories, it’s a musical journey and audio visual experience about Holmfirth and the river that created it. Following this, audiences can enjoy Requiem for a Fading World, a new composition for chamber orchestra and choir telling a fantastical, post-apocalyptic tale for modern times.
On Saturday, August 17, Channel 4’s The Piano finalist Daria Golovchenko will be performing a piano concert at Holmfirth High School. Daria was born and raised in Kherson, Ukraine, and trained and performed across her home country. The war reached her hometown and so she moved to the UK, settling with her daughter in Holmfirth.
August ends with a joyful social sing event at Upperthong Village Hall on Friday, August 30 at 7pm with Soul Choir who are based in Holmfirth.
In this event the audience are the performers so if you love to sing and want to do it in a relaxed, welcoming environment where there’s no sheet music and no audition.
The festival wraps up in early September with a comedy event from Holmfirth-born Kieran Hodgson at The Civic on Saturday, September 7 at 7pm.
Fresh from sold out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe and Soho Theatre and from a 40-date national tour, Keiran returns to his hometown to give audiences an idea of what it’s like living as a lapsed Yorkshireman in a Scotsman’s world. Tickets are selling fast for this event, so book soon to avoid missing out.
The full line-up of events can be found on the Holmfirth Arts Festival website: https://www.holmfirthartsfestival.co.uk/what-s-on
Holmfirth Arts Festival celebrates creativity in the landscape by commissioning new work and supporting diverse artists, inspiring all communities to engage with the arts and their heritage, caring for the environment and connecting locally, regionally and internationally.
Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content and copywriting.
