Announcing Along the Road

NW Live Arts is pleased to announce its next concert, titled Along the Road, on Thursday 1 June 2023 at Cecil Sharp House.

Five musicians will join NW Live Arts this June for the performance: Kuljit Bhamra MBE (tabla), Joe Townsend (violin), Kadialy Kouyate (kora), Henrietta Hill (viola) and Misha Mullov Abbado (double bass).

Along the Road is a surprising mix of musical influences and storytelling perspectives exploring life from the road. Audiences can expect to travel on a musical road from West Africa and India to Europe, where each performer will bring their musical and personal heritage along for the journey. They can expect to hear folk-inspired music from Hungary and Romania, foot-tapping jazz, new composition, and thought-provoking live improvisation as we explore our own paths along the road. Joining us for this unique journey are storytellers from NW Live Arts’ creative workshops – people from our community who have experienced homelessness, and are asylum seekers – in partnership with Single Homeless Project and St John’s Waterloo. Together with the musicians they will share their stories from along the road.

The weekly creative workshops, led by storyteller Eileen Egerton, have been exploring the concert’s theme with participants drawn from NW Live Arts’ partnerships with London charities, Single Homeless Project and St John’s Waterloo.

NW Live Arts’ Artistic Director, Caroline Heslop comments that “hearing voices that are too often silenced – or never even sound – is so important for us to understand life from different perspectives. I am incredibly grateful to our partners, Single Homeless Project and St John’s Waterloo, and to Eileen Egerton for helping our storytelling participants explore the theme in a safe and open space.

“I am so pleased to be working with musicians of this calibre to shape the programme of this concert. It’s wonderful to welcome Joe and Kadialy into the NW Live Arts family for the first time, and I’m over the moon that Kuljit, Henrietta and Misha will be working with us once again.”

Tickets for Along the Road are on sale now.

NW Live Arts is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Along the Road is supported by Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor advised fund held at The London Community Foundation, and by the Galashan Trust.