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"The Carnival Band should be bottled and made freely available on the NHS" Nottingham Evening Post The Carnival Band communicate the essence and the spirit of Carnival - celebration, festivity and exuberance. Their high energy performances combine early and traditional music from around the world, appealing to all ages. This season The Carnival Band will be touring again with Maddy Prior in May 2007. Education projects feature as highly as always: watch out for their brand new "Amazing travels of Sir John Mandeville" programme, combining medieval and world music. Falling between 'early music' 'world music' 'folk music' and 'classical', their CDs don't fit easily in record shop pigeonholes. Most of the music is popular, much of it anonymous and traditional, but composers such as Pelham Humfrey and Thomas Arne elbow their way in. The band like to confuse styles, blur edges, mix categories. Macedonian Reggae, Balkan Bransles, Noel Coward meets James Brown, John Dowland shakes hands with Hank Wangford. It's all part of the carnival ethos. The Carnival Band know they are not 'authentic' and they love it! They love and respect the traditions on which they draw and they just want to have fun with the music and share their enjoyment with an audience. So what do they play? The repertoire covers periods from the middle ages to the middle of the twentieth century and occasionally beyond. The music comes from England, France, Spain, Sweden, Croatia, Louisiana, Tanzania, Macedonia, Bolivia – in theory nowhere is excluded! The instrumentation is idiosyncratic, several of the band being multi-instrumentalists, and includes period instruments such as shawms and renaissance bagpipes, modern folk instruments such as electric and acoustic guitars, and instruments from non-european traditions such as the 'ud and the djembe. The band also burst into song from time to time with great enthusiasm if not with 'bel canto' beauty. But who said music has to be beautiful? CONTACT: Andy Watts www.carnivalband.com Further information: Education and community programme The Carnival Band on video The Carnival Band website
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