Advance PWYC Ticket: https://buytickets.at/arcticcircle/1707590
The midsummer solstice, the longest of days and the shortest of nights. A time of congregation and celebration.
'O as I walked out one mid-summer’s morning,
For to view the fields and the flowers so gay,
’Twas there on the banks of the sweet primroses,
That I beheld a most pleasant maid.'
On June 21st The Memory Band will assemble at the parish church of St John’s Leytonstone for a 'Celebration of the Sun' inspired by the midsummer radio mix the band produced for 6music's Freak Zone Playlist last year. Across the afternoon you will experience solo performances from Armenian viola da gamba singer and storyteller Lucine Musaelian, plus BBC Folk Award winning singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Lisa Knapp. The Memory Band themselves will bring a four-piece band to perform songs ancient and modern in their own style with Liza Bec on recorders and dulcitone, Olie Brice on double bass and the voice of Hannah Caughlin alongside the band’s leader Stephen Cracknell on guitar and vocals.
On June 21st The Memory Band will assemble at the parish church of St John’s Leytonstone for a 'Celebration of the Sun' inspired by the midsummer radio mix the band produced for 6music's Freak Zone Playlist last year. Across the afternoon you experience solo performance from Armenian viola da gamba singer and storyteller Lucine Musaelian plus BBC Folk Award winning singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Lisa Knapp. The Memory Band themselves will bring a four-piece band and performing songs ancient and modern in our own style with Liza Bec on recorders and dulcitone, Olie Brice on double bass and the voice of Hannah Caughlin alongside the band’s leader Stephen Cracknell on guitar and vocals.
Since the release of their first EP in 2003 The Memory Band been navigating their own path through the folk music landscape of the digital age. Led by producer Stephen Cracknell with a fluid cast of collaborators, they blend the traditional with the modern, the sacred with the profane and over two decades their adventure has produced six studio albums. They have a long history of performing music from Paul Giovanni's soundtrack to The Wicker Man as well as other film and archive related projects. In 2024 The Memory Band released Never The Same Way Twice and A Common Treasury - two volumes of unreleased archive recordings on their own Hungry Hill label - and in 2025 make their return to live performance
BBC Folk Award winning folk-singer, songwriter & multi-instrumentalist Lisa Knapp’s solo career began back in 2007 with her remarkable debut, Wild & Undaunted (2017), which marked her out as one of the most innovative figures of a newly invigorated British folk movement. Till April is Dead - A Garland of May (2017), was the result of her long-held fascination with the traditional practices erupting across the UK during the month of May. Lisa’s most recent release, Hinterland is as part of a duo with her partner, Gerry Diver, has garnered 5* reviews in Songlines and Guardian. “Folk at its most exalted” Observer, “ A marvel” MOJO.
Lucine Musaelian is a viola da gamba player, singer, and songwriter who will perform a programme of self-accompanied music. Her practice is inspired by Armenian ashugh storytelling traditions and by women of the 16th Century Ferrarese court, who accompanied themselves on instruments like the viola da gamba. The programme will combine these traditions to tell a story about love, loss and redemption.
'Today bright Phoebus she smiled down on me for the very first time;
For the very first time she smiled on me.'
Further event details: Cafe open. An event for all ages. Pay-What-You-Can entry in advance or on the door (£12 per adult suggestion, children free), subject to availability/capacity.