The Almanac Returns 'Summer Notes'

About

Jack McNeill – clarinet & bass clarinet, percussion & whistles

Eleanor McIntosh – soprano

Kate Halsall – piano and harmonium & piano

The Almanac returns this Summer. A musical stirring that combines instrumental music with poetry, song, found texts, improvisations and a certain trademark creative curiosity. This performance sees some of Cumbria's finest chamber musicians come together to continue to forge a musical tradition. It has a thread woven through new music and reimagined classics, a turning of the year, an Almanac for Cumbria, a book of days.

Come and take a seat at the closing of the day with this ensemble, with their voices, wind instruments, keys, bellows and unusual percussion. Expect the slightly unexpected as they weave musical creatures from the air and earth, sing of rivers, moons, and local legends. A new set of year-round carols to accompany the old - carrying homelessness and ambition, songs of love and of time, the crack and spin of weathers, dry-stone-walls of poems, words of grief and hope, lullabies, and tunes – well known and brand new – but mostly an invitation to be taken on a journey. We hope you enjoy it.

jackmcneill.co.uk

katehalsall.co.uk

About the Artists:

JaJack McNeill Clarinet & Bass Clarinetck McNeill plays clarinet and bass clarinet. With a background rooted in contemporary classical performance practice and an interest in folk and ancient resonances, the work he makes moves between the seams that tie these elements together. He is the Artistic Director of Propellor, a 12-piece cross-genre ensemble - whose performances, installations and multimedia projects map our collective experience of the natural world, through the lens of soundscape ecology.

He has been an artist in residence at Snape Maltings Open Space, The Glasshouse ICM (Sage Gateshead) and Brewery Arts in Kendal. As a composer and producer, Jack's work has combined instrumental music with visual elements, live processing, digital media, text and spoken word, real world sounds, movement and theatre. He has been supported by the Arts Council England, PRS Foundation, Help Musicians UK, Sound and Music, IVORS, Brighter Sound, Worshipful Company of Musicians and Countess of Munster and is currently one of three inaugural Catalyst (Creative Residencies in Cumbria) awards, creating a work for Propellor and solo violinist David Le Page - a science fiction audio drama with live massed natural voice choir.

Eleanor McIntosh is a Soprano originally from the Eden Valley, Cumbria (UK). After graduating from the Royal Northern College of MuEleanor McIntosh Sopranosic in 2014 Eleanor began her singing career performing as lead vocalist in Europe's largest Christmas Show 'Thursford

Christmas Spectacular' for two consecutive seasons. From here Eleanor began performing not only close to home but also internationally. International credits include chorus roles in Turandot and The Flying Dutchman (Singapore Opera), Little Red Riding Hood and Fairy Godmother ('Grimm tales' TGMS Productions, Ireland) and leading her own shows on board luxury cruise ships 'Silversea' as their operatic soprano with Luna Rossa Productions.

Locally Eleanor has performed as soprano soloist in Cumbrian events such as the 'Keswick Summer Music Festival', Staveley Choral Society's 'Mozart Requiem' and the 'Mozart Vespers'. Most recently Eleanor was the principal soprano in Cumbria Opera's 'Kings, Witches, Lovers and Souls', an original opera composed by Jen Hartley (Penrith, 2024), recitalist at the 2024 Barrow Arts Week and vocalist with the Propellor Ensemble at Aerial Festival, Ambleside

Kate Halsall

Kate Halsall

Kate has collaborated closely with a variety of musicians including Joel Bell, Sarah Dacey, Ruth Goller, Fumiko Miyachi, Stephen Hiscock; with artists from Fretwork Viols, Michael Clarke Dance Company to King Crimson's Bill Bruford and more recently Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs drummer Ewan Mackenzie's Dextro and Glasgow based improvisers, Sound Thought. She's worked with a number of new music ensembles and companies including Opera North, Mahogany Opera, as pianist/director in Piano Circus, for Andrew Poppy's Sustaining Ensemble, with Michael Clark Dance Company (OH MY GODDESS 2003), as pianist for In Place by Colin Riley, and for Ockham's Razor contemporary circus (Graham Fitkin's Not Until We Are Lost).

Kate is the pianist/manager for Galvanize Ensemble, an electroacoustic group working with artists, film & text, creating cross disciplinary performances and exhibitions. She has been able to develop new work and her ensemble practice, with residencies including with Stromatolite/NEM Summit, Aldeburgh Music, Banff Centre Canada, Bowed Piano Ensemble Colorado College, Derry University Residency with SoundKarD, as a Boom Artist for Oxford Contemporary Music and a Summer Studio with Sage Gateshead (Glasshouse).

Other performances for solo and ensemble projects, have included at Frontiers Festival, BBC Free Thinking Festival (NE Collective Choir), Acoustic Ecology Symposium University of Kent, Dartington Hall, Multiple Piano Day BBC Proms, LIFEM, Southbank, John Cage Uncaged (Musicircus, Barbican), Kings Place Multiplier Series, Cutting Edge, iF Festival Bush Hall, Cheltenham Contemporary Concerts, Aldeburgh, Hoxton Hall, Sound Source (Plundering Žižek); Tramway Glasgow, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Sonorities, Tête à Tête Opera Festival, Colourscape Festival, Southbank Centre Imagine Children's Festival, Multiple Piano Day BBC Proms, Ether Festival, Festival of Dimitria Thessaloniki, Festival de la Sainte Baume Provence, Hack the Barbican and Blackheather Club.