Happy 2024 from Karona Sessions
...and what a year we have in store for you!
Happy New Year to you all from Team Karona Sessions! We hope you had a joyful and restful break, and are no doubt getting back to normality, whatever that is! We are honoured to be bringing you some amazing live music from around the world over the next 12 months, and hopefully beyond.
Here’s what we have in store for this newsletter:
Our first concert featuring Belinda O’Hooley is fast approaching
What’s on for the rest of 2024
Our new venue: Dean Wood Golf Club
Bryony Griffith and Alice Jones: a customer review
Keeping music live
Any Other Business
Please share this newsletter with anyone whom you feel would be interested in keeping music live in West Lancashire.
Belinda O’Hooley: Monday 12 February
Our first concert of 2024 is fast approaching and we are delighted that Belinda O’Hooley, one half of O’Hooley and Tidow, will be opening the series for us as part of her UK solo tour.
Belinda and Heidi play to sold out audiences around the country and, more recently have found global fame from having written and performed the theme tune to the award-winning BBC TV series, Gentleman Jack. What can we expect to hear at Belinda’s solo concert? She caught up with us recently:
"I’ll be playing piano tunes from my solo album ‘Inversions’, and singing songs from the solo album as well as the O&T back catalogue. Singing songs unaccompanied and also with accordion, telling stories of the songs and hopefully connecting with my audience.”
Tickets are £15 each and already selling well. Given that this is the only Lancashire concert of the tour, it is likely to sell out quickly so please don’t delay in grabbing yours and telling your friends. More details and tickets can be found here…
2024 Concert Schedule
We have a stellar line up for you in this, our first full year of concerts. There is roughly one every month, with a break in August. Here’s what’s in store…
Fri 15 March: Liz Stringer
Sun 7 April: Boo Hewerdine
Fri 17 May: Iona Lane
Sun 9 June: Reg Meuross
Fri 12 July: Blair Dunlop
Sat 21 Sept: Charlie Dore and Julian Littman
Mon 14 Oct: Steve Tilston
Fri 1 Nov: Malin Lewis Trio
Fri 22 Nov: Katie Spencer
Thurs 12 Dec: Tim Edey’s Celtic Christmas
Tickets are £15 each and are now available up to and including Blair Dunlop in July via our fabulous new ticket partner, Good Show - here’s the link to our own Box Office page…
Each of the concerts will be opened by a special guest artist from the North West, playing a short set (PLEASE NOTE: there is no support for Belinda’s concert). Tickets for concerts from September onwards will be available just ahead of Belinda’s concert.
Our new venue: Dean Wood Golf Club
We are delighted to be working with Anne and the lovely folks at Dean Wood Golf Club for the concert series. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a member to come to the concerts! The concerts are held in the function room of the golf club, which is situated in the lovely historic village of Up Holland, Lancashire. The venue has a large car park, great access for wheelchairs and level access, a bar, cloakroom and toilets all on ground floor level.
All seating is unreserved and available on a first come first served basis. All concerts start at 7.30pm prompt with doors open at 7pm. If you have accessibility needs, please contact Ian to discuss your requirements - contact details are below.
Live sound is provided by Karona Sound using top of the range Bose PA equipment.
Bryony Griffith and Alice Jones: A Customer Review
On Friday 15th December, we had a sell out crowd for Bryony and Alice’s concert at the fabulous St Thomas The Martyr church, Up Holland, for the Lancashire leg of their Wesselbobs winter tour.
Photo: Stuart Cleverdon
One of our regular supporters, Martin O’Nions, wrote a fabulous review…
“The musicianship! The humour! The scholarship! The burlesque! An absolutely brilliant evening in the presence of two superbly talented and engaging performers. Individually skilled, their vocal and instrumental prowess combine into something sublime, and their between-song commentary and interaction is worthy of a comedy award in its own right. Will definitely be looking out for opportunities to see them again in the future.”
Thanks to Bryony and Alice for a superb performance that really got us into the Christmas spirit, and to Martin for that excellent review. You can find out more about them at bryonyandalice.com.
Keeping Music Live
There are a few reasons why we have started this concert series:
There is very little world-class live music in the West Lancashire area, with most of our residents having to travel to Liverpool, Manchester and beyond for such entertainment;
We are seeing an increase in the number of dedicated music venues closing, making it so much harder for professional musicians to make a living;
We love live music, especially in more intimate settings!!
However, we receive no external funding and purely rely on ticket sales to keep the series going. In addition to paying the musicians, we also have many other costs to manage, including venue hire, marketing, insurance and equipment maintenance. As you can imagine, there is very little left after all of that!
There are two invaluable things you can do though in order to help us keep music live in our locality:
Book tickets as early as you can so that the stress of whether we will break even for each concert is eased;
Tell your friends who would be interested in coming along by sharing this newsletter with them. You will receive a maximum of two newsletters per month, and we cannot always rely on social media posts and algorithms to spread the news!
As this goes out, we are delighted that there have been sales for each of the currently available concerts, but please do buy in advance where possible. We know that times are hard at present, but it really does help if you can. Thank you!
Any Other Business
Don’t forget that you can hear about the backstory of several of our 2024 artists via the critically-acclaimed audio podcast series, Half Hour Mentor. Boo Hewerdine, Iona Lane, Reg Meuross, Charlie Dore and Katie Spencer have all appeared on the podcast, talking about how they turned professional and also share lots of songwriting and performance tips.
Well, that’s it for now. Thanks again for your support and reading this far. Do share the newsletter with anyone whom you feel would be interested in coming to the concerts, and let us know if there are any features you like us to cover in future issues.
Yours in music
Team Karona Sessions
Website: www.karonasound.co.uk/sessions
Email: ian@karonasound.co.uk
Phone: 07759 219270