This year, to showcase and promote an armful of fantastic North East musicians and artists from further afield with non-obvious connections to Newcastle, I’m putting on a little festival with a ragtag bunch of friends and colleagues. It’s called ‘Significant Other’ and is a grassroots festival of adventurous new music for Newcastle & the North East featuring local, national and international artists. Over the first three Sunday afternoons in May 2024, Significant Other will present a weekly show featuring carefully curated pairings of artists. The focus is on bringing exciting, fun and catchy contemporary music to audiences in the North East in a family friendly setting, showcasing local music alongside leading musicians from across the world. We’re proud to be supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
The three shows will take place in Elder Beer Café’s back yard from 3pm to 6pm in Heaton, Newcastle. This small but adequate page will soon have a link to tickets for the events, and after the festival will function as an archive page for what, with a bit of luck, will become a yearly fixture. Thanks so far to Ed Sharp, to the folks at Hand Of, and to all the artists who have taken the punt of playing at the first ever edition. Below there’s info about the three dates in May; if you’re in Newcastle, come down! The shows will be small and tightly packed and–I hope and expect–very special afternoons. Come down and be part of the start of something; help shape our Significant Other.
Roster & Artist Info
///MAY 5th\\\
Hyperdawn Fêted by The Quietus as ‘reimagining pop’, and about to embark on a USA West Coast tour following the release of their second album Steady and guests appearances on NTS 2, in Crack Magazine and with Space Afrika, Hyperdawn bring their unique take on concrete music, tape loops and rhythm and bass to Elder Beer. See and hear more: https://hyperdawn.bandcamp.com/album/bleach
Nina Guo A Los Angeles native, Nina Guo’s work as a composer and performer of vocal work is, in a word, supercontemporary, encompassing the interpreting notated music, improvisation, collaborating on interdisciplinary projects with visual and multimedia artists, opera, and radio; her work is very serious and very funny at the same time. A former Darmstadt Ferienkurse Prizewinner, Nina comes to Newcastle following recent performances of Morton Feldman’s monolithic Three Voices. See and hear more: https://www.facesound.org/listen-watch
///MAY 12th\\\
Sarah Heneghan Sarah is a Sheffield-based composer-performer and multi-instrumentalist with a specialism in drums, whose work has been promoted by organisations including manchester jazz festival (mjf), Glasshouse ICE (formerly Sage Gateshead), Jazz North, Sound & Music, and Arts Council England, and has been an mjf hothouse 2019-21 artist, Jazz North Northern Line 2019-21 artist, Sage Gateshead Summer Studios 2020 artist, an mjf originals commissions 2021 artist, and a Take Five 2021 artist. Under the Power Out moniker, Sarah’s music is outrageously funky; fizzing with odd grooves and microtimings that will make you weak at the knees. Bring your favourite dancing shoes (or at least your best, most clickety foot-tapping shoes). See and hear more: https://youtu.be/okaYuhVDA3E?t=8
Northumberland Radical Fun Group (Joe Snape + Friends) A recent alumni of The Glasshouse ICE’s artist-in-residence programme and recipient of a 2021-22 Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists in composition, Joe’s music mixes conventional and homemade instruments with light, text and video to make unusual and emotive performances. His work has been presented at places like The Kitchen (New York), Café Oto (London), and Wonder Site (Tokyo), and also at places like the Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) and Aldeburgh Music. The Quietus calls Joe’s music ‘goofy, melancholy, irreverent fun – very, very singularly itself’, and Fluid Radio thinks it’s ‘joyous and beautiful’. Together with three bandmates from his 13-strong big band Northumberland Radical Fun Group, Snape will premiere arrangements from forthcoming record Action Vibration, an ecstatic, thirty-minute celebration of near-death experiences, serious illness, and recovery, ahead of two USA residencies this summer. See and hear more: https://joesna.pe/
///MAY 19th\\\
Sam Baxter Sam Baxter is an interpreter, arranger, and performer of traditional song. With a skillful blend of electric/acoustic guitars, drones, and fiddle, he creates deeply personal performances filled with warmth and emotion. Sam sings a carefully selected repertoire, expressing the full gamut of human experience. He is especially interested in how the the thoughts and feelings in traditional music can transcend time and speak to modern audiences. Through his music, he explores stories of love and loss, queer narratives, songs of industry, nature and social injustice. Originally from the High Peak, but now based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Sam is gaining a reputation for his work with traditional and contemporary folk music. In 2022 he was included in TradFolk.org’s Article ‘Young Folk Musicians you Need to Hear’, and in 2018 he was the winner of Bromyard Folk Festivals ‘Future of Folk’ competition. Also a sought-after collaborator, he can be found playing in contemporary classical music ensemble Sømnus, with folk-singer and song-writer Catch the Sparrow and in duo with Scottish violinist Merle Harbron. Sam has also toured in Norway with the Synneva Gjelland Band and works with electronic music producer Jen Mac in her project Heen ‘where traditional music meets contemporary production’. See and hear more: https://www.sambaxter.co.uk/
Ian Sankey Ian Sankey is a musician and trombone player based in the North East of England. Ian works predominantly across the classical, contemporary and early music scenes both at home in the UK and throughout Europe. A regular player with Royal Northern Sinfonia, the last year has seen Ian play with ensembles including Cologne Chamber Orchestra and Northumberland Radical Fun Group. Ian also toured Britain and Ireland with Surge Scotland’s street theatre show Beautiful Bones; an apocalyptic, spectacular celebration of life and death. Across 2021-2023 Ian has toured though-out Europe with new music ensemble S T A R G A Z E, working with pop giants including Dirty Projectors’ frontman David Longstreth and recently with electronic musician and visual artist Alva Noto, and a 2023 Foundry Residency with Joe Snape at Glasshouse International Centre for Music. Alongside these super contemporary engagements, Ian is one of vanishingly few musicians committed to the resurrection of the ‘carnyx’, a Celtic horn with the head of a dragon, used in ancient battles to rally troops and intimidate opposing forces. We look forward to a beguiling blend of cutting edge modern works interwoven with folk classics with and without an array of smartly deployed stomp boxes from an exciting musician with serious chops. See and hear more: https://www.isankey.co.uk/
joesna.pe 