We are touring a new show in autumn 2023 and spring/summer 2024. It is called Harpland and is loosely connected with ideas of migration. A new album will be out in 2024 and is being mixed now by Real World’s Tim Oliver.
Here are the autumn 2023 dates, and some 2024 dates, with ticket links –
16 November 2023 Turner Sims, Southampton
17 November 2023 RWCMD, Cardiff
21 November 2023 Surrey University, Guildford
29 November 2023 Tung Auditorium, Liverpool
30 November 2023 Pound Arts Centre, Corsham
01 December 2023 Assembly Rooms, Ludlow
02 December 2023 AMATA, Falmouth University
05 May 2024 Ashburton Arts
15 May 2024 Howard Assembly Room, Leeds
17 May 2024 Tolbooth, Stirling
18 May 2024 Queens Hall, Edinburgh
19 May 2024 Eden Court, Inverness
23 May 2024 Shetland Arts, Shetland
28 May 2024 NCEM, York
29 May 2024 The Stables, Wavendon
05 June 2024 Lakeside Arts, Nottingham
11 June 2024 The Haymarket, Anvil Arts, Basingstoke
More dates to be confirmed for 2024
The show features Ruth on three harps while Graham manipulates sound from stage. There is a specially commissioned light installation from artist Peter Freeman and there are interviews from migrants that Ruth interviewed earlier in 2023.
Migration is not a new phenomenon. Since homo sapiens came out of Africa between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago, humans have populated the planet at an increasing rate. There are now over 8 billion of us and we move around a lot. Migration can be motivated by many different triggers – geological and geographic changes were key to starting the movement of people north from Africa as was climate change. And climate change is causing migration once more. There are forced migrations such as refugees from war or cross-Atlantic slavery. There are more voluntary migrations such as Europeans to America from the late 19th century onwards, or the colonisation of Australia. Then there is the recruitment of workers from abroad such as the supply of Turkish workers to West Germany in the 1960s, the use of Asian workers in the building of Gulf States’ infrastructure or the UK’s use of Commonwealth labour to fulfil new and vacant positions in England. And so on….
Ruth’s Scottish background has driven this album. The enforced eviction and subsequent migration of farmers and crofters from the highlands, as part of ‘the clearances’ which benefited wealthy Southern sheep farmers, provides the central focus. We have predominantly taken traditional Scottish tunes, performed on varying harps and reworked them completely keeping migratory ideas in mind.
