Ring Out Christmas Bells!

Once again The Ridgeway Singers & Band invite you to join them for an  afternoon of West Gallery carols, Dorset songs, dance tunes, and local poems and stories to celebrate the coming of midwinter and the festive season.

Formed in 2013 by Artsreach as part of the South Dorset Ridgeway project, the group specialises in performing Dorset music old and new, in the tradition made famous by Thomas Hardy in Under the Greenwood Tree. The singers are accompanied by musicians playing stringed and woodwind instruments, and the concerts evoke old-fashioned country Christmases when the entertainment was local and home-made.

The group is led by renowned serpent player and member of the Mellstock Band Phil Humphries, and the popular actor and folk musician Tim Laycock.

New to the repertoire are a Christmas Anthem from an old book found at a car boot sale in Bridport, and a setting by Phil Humphries of William Barnes’s poem Rustic Childhood, as well as arrangements for the band of more tunes by the late Nick Dunckley.

The concerts begin on 6  December at a new venue for the RS&B in Sturminster Marshall. There follows a return to St Mary’s in Bridport for a matinee performance on 15 December. The final concert will once again be at the Dorford Centre in Dorchester on Thursday 19 December.

Adults £12 / U18s: £6

Click below to book or call (01305) 262159