Lighting the Dark: A Christmas Concert

17 and 22 December 2022

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Martin Green has gathered a host of remarkable friends to join him on a journey around the darker corners of Christmas and into the light.

His accordion and electronics, familiar to fans of award-winning folk adventurers Lau, sit with the fiddle of Ultan O’Brien (Slow Moving Clouds) on the rich, warm bed of an all-star brass trio: composer and improviser Laura Jurd (trumpet); Danielle Price, whose tuba can be heard on her myriad collaborations, including with Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat; and the brilliant young Glaswegian trombonist Anoushka Nanguy.

Together they draw the older music and stories of Christmas, and even a carol or two, into a new light.

Price

From £14*

Start time
5.30pm

Read our COVID-19 guidance »

*Prices vary by venue

Martin Green

Martin Green is a multi-award-winning musician and Ivor Novello Award-winning composer. As a member of Lau he has won four BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for Best Group, and in recent years his solo work has taken in writing for orchestra and chorus, brass bands, helming documentaries, and co-writing two acclaimed audio dramas. 

In 2019 he won an Ivor Novello Award for his sound walk Aeons, commissioned by Opera North for The Great Exhibition of the North. In 2016 his extraordinary multimedia show Flit brought together Portishead’s Adrian Utley, Mogwai’s Dominic Aitchison and Becky Unthank from The Unthanks, with BAFTA-winning animators Will Anderson and Ainslie. In 2014 he received the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists in recognition of his talent as a composer. 

Martin’s sound walk for lockdown featuring trumpet player Laura Jurd was commissioned by Opera North for the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine programme in 2020, and 2021 saw the airing of his documentary for BBC Radio 4 exploring the ecstatic links between Morris dancing and rave. Alongside this, he explored similar themes in his acclaimed audio drama in collaboration with Wils Wilson and David Greig, The Portal. 2022, Martin’s ‘Year of Brass’, brought his BBC Radio 4 documentary on the world of brass banding, Love Spit and Valve Oil, as well as an audio drama, Keli, inspired by the people and the music he encountered in the making of it. His commission for the PRS New Music biennial 2022 was a work for brass band, performed live by the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain. 

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Lighting the Dark: A Christmas Concert
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