NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA, THE EPSTEIN, STORNOWAY and STUTI MEHTA

Event information

NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA
The North Sea Radio Orchestra (NSRO) draw in influences ranging from folk, minimalism and the more unusual areas of pop to the harmonic language of the 20th century English choral and concert hall musical tradition. Creating large-scale musical backdrops for Tennyson, Hardy and Yeats, this London-based ensemble features wind, strings, percussion, guitars, organs and voices, which collectively create a world in which melody and harmony abound.

\'What makes the North Sea Radio Orchestra special is [Craig] Fortnam\'s gift for orchestration, the deft and original way he puts deceptively simple materials in the hands of sophisticated performers. Melody pours from his pen on every page...They don\'t sound like anyone else though you might detect echoes of Nick Drake, Peter Warlock or even Vernon Elliot.\'
(The Guardian)

\'Craig Fortnam\'s compositions stake out a unique terrain, somewhere between Vaughan Williams\'s The Lark Ascending and the baroque meditations of Sufjan Stevens, and his wife Sharron populates it with a voice of dazzling, pre-industrial clarity.\'
(The Sunday Telegraph)

www.nsro.co.uk
www.myspace.com/northsearadioorchestra


THE EPSTEIN
This Oxford five-piece recently unleashed their debut album, The Last of the Charanguistas, on an unsuspecting world. Crowned winners of Glastonbury Festival\'s \"Emerging Talent\" competition in 2007, their performances are always rooted in superb musicianship: singing slide guitar, spicy banjo and understated, note-perfect backing harmonies.

\'An odd combination of bluegrass and desert music.It\'s impossible to deny the charm and warmth exuding from the stage. A band with a clutch of masterful, understatedly powerful pop anthems to their name.\'
(Nightshift)

www.theepstein.com
www.myspace.com/theepstein


STORNOWAY
Stornoway are \"a living, breathing Mark Twain novel\", allegedly. Think Super Furry Animals, The Gorkies, early Belle and Sebastian, Beta Band with a bit of Dylan style folk and blues thrown in. \"Excellent ditties\", asserted Bethan Elfyn of BBC Radio One; \"This is perfect\", proclaimed her colleague Colin Murray; \"Moments of real magic\", declared Tom Horan of The Daily Telegraph. The collective consists of an ornithologist, an occasional Russian translator, a South African Pirate Captain, and a human radio, first united in a snow-encrusted Oxford garage early in 2006. Renowned for their live shows, the songs are both arresting and sublime.

www.myspace.com/stornoway


STUTI MEHTA
Stuti Mehta will be performing a set of Gujarati folksongs which originate from the western part of India and some less traditional Bollywood numbers, set to tabla, dhol, mrudang, flute and synth accompaniment.

Seated by 7.30pm

Refreshments will be available before the start of the first act and during the 20 minute interval