Guitar virtuoso Richard Durrant takes his Sussex dates online

Shoreham-based guitar virtuoso Richard Durrant has gone online with his Midsummer For Music Tour.
Richard DurrantRichard Durrant
Richard Durrant

The tour was to have been the first stage of his cycling pilgrimage beginning this week from St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney and arriving at Santiago de Compostela in the autumn with many concerts en route.

Along the way, he was due to play a Brighton Open Air Theatre on June 21; Knepp, New Barn Farm, Swallows Lane, Dial Post on June 27; and St John the Baptist, Clayton, Hassocks on June 28.

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And then it was all postponed. Instead, Richard’s plans to travel through the landscape of the British Isles on the way to his concerts will happen virtually with a live stream on each of the concert dates: Inverness, Edinburgh, Penrith, Richmond, York, Sherwood Forest, Milton Keynes, Brighton (June 21), Tunbridge Wells, Knepp Estate (June 27) and Mid Sussex (June 28).

Many of the venues will be sharing the stream with Durrant fans who have accepted later dates for the concerts, now scheduled for June 2021. The live streams can be viewed on Richard’s YouTube and Facebook pages.

The music for the virtual concerts will be from Richard’s forthcoming double album Weald Barrows (summer 2020) which is the sequel to his 2018 double album Stringhenge.

“Both albums highlight the folk traditions from which we have come and express concern for a more natural world we are in danger of leaving behind,” Richard said.

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Richard was particularly looking forward to his date at Knepp Estate, the home of the internationally famous re-wilding project and also an inspiration for one of the tracks from the new album, The Re-Wilding.

Richard said: “Ironically, even though these concerts can’t go ahead until next year because of lockdown, the situation itself has highlighted important environmental issues including a fresh new focus on cycling. This will be my fourth full concert tour carrying the entire show on a bicycle.”

Ahead of the new album Richard has released a single Kenneth the Hedge, a track taken from Stringehenge – a conservation song about an ancient English hedgerow that got ripped up to make way for a road.

Composer, songwriter, concert guitarist and ukulele virtuoso Richard studied at the Royal College of Music. He has worked as a solo artist since his London debut in 1986. Several of his more recent UK tours have been undertaken by bicycle, but he also still performs in Europe and South America.

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His sound has grown from the classical tradition and also embraces British folk and minimalism. He has released 16 solo albums, composed a six-movement ukulele concerto and created a substantial collection of guitar works. He continues to write and record from his studio in Sussex.

The double A side single Kenneth the Hedge will be released on June 29 2020. The single’s flip side, The Bog Oak Bourée, was recorded on a guitar made from a 5,000-year-old English oak.

The single is released ahead of Richard’s new double album Weald Barrows.

Richard cycled from Sussex to the Isle of Sky in 2015 on his Cycling Music tour and has been an advocate of cycling for many years. Richard is regularly seen on his bike around his home town of Shoreham.

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