Some Penicuik events in 2002

(click for today’s up-to-date events upcoming and recent)

In two performances

EARLY: 7pm at 4 West Street

WEDNESDAY 18 DEC. ONLY

CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN adapted from LOUIS de BERNIÈRES’ book by MIKE MARAN & PHILIP CONTINI with music by ALISON STEPHENS (mandolin) & ANNE EVANS (flute & piano), painting by RUTH BARRIE, lighting by JOHN BROWN and JIM BOWMAN.

These Penicuik performances are produced and directed by MIKE MARAN by arrangement with ROGER KELLY and PENICUIK COMMUNITY ARTS

“First night audience -among them Louis de Bernières himself- gave the performers a deserved ovation”'-Hampstead & Highgate Express

“Real human communication” -The Scotsman.

“Engrossing, touching & beautifully played”-Sunday Times “I loved it”-Mariella Fostrup BBC

“Good old-fashioned entertainment and felt better for it” -Mail on Sunday. “Human and at times tear jerking performance” -Time Out

“Props wonderful…Anvil Chorus deliciously funny ... Alison Stephens' mandolin fast and fluent ...sold out and deserved it.” -South China Morning Post “Wonderfully fleet-fingered magic mandolin playing” -Evening Standard

“Mike Maran, you've invented a genre in which you can cram your whole huge heart” -The Scotsman

Mike Maran set out on a career as a rock star in the 1970s, opening shows for Uriah Heep, The Electric Light Orchestra, Wizzard, Medicine Head, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Steeleye Span. Today, his feet are firmly in the theatre -to which he brings all his musical experience. His productions about Robert Louis Stevenson, Gavin Maxwell and Neil Gunn combining music, movement, narrative and images have toured extensively in Scotland. His most recent production, 'Did You Used to be R. D. Laing?' won a 'Herald's Angel' at the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe and was enthusiastically received at Penicuik Arts Centre last year. 'Private Angelo' opened at the Royal Lyceum at the 2001 Fringe to packed houses and sensational reviews.

Philip Contini of Valvona & Crolla trained as a chorister under Arthur Oldham and sang with Scottish Opera and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus. He’s worked with Mike Maran on many 'Italian' productions including this adaptation of 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' and most recently Eric Linklater's 'Private Angelo'.

Anne Evans studied flute in Edinburgh, Vienna and London. She has played all over Europe and the Far East, performing at the highest levels of music making in Scotland. In the late eighties Leonard Friedmann discovered her talent as a pianist. Since then she’s gone from strength to strength, playing in Stravinsky's 'Ebony Concerto' with Chamber Jazz, in duo recitals with Dick Lee, and performing the Mozart and Beethoven Quintets for piano and wind.

Alison Stephens is probably the finest mandolin player in the UK. She made her professional debut aged 17 in the Vivaldi Concerto for Two Mandolins at The Barbican, London. Since then she’s played with every major orchestra in every major hall in the UK and all over the world. She’s recorded 'Music from the Novels of Louis de Bernieres' with Craig Ogden and the Hummel Mandolin Concerto with Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is at Penicuik Arts Centre on Wednesday 18^th December 2002–in two performances: EARLY at 7pm, LATE at 9pm

Tickets £7 (concessions £5) Box office Arts Centre 01968 678804

Websites: www.mikemaran.com www.alisonstephens.com

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FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER

EDINBURGH JAZZ QUINTET

Swing, blues, mainstream…

at Penicuik Arts Centre

8pm Tickets £6

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November 2002:

Friday 15 November

PENICUIK COMMUNITY ARTS PRESENTS

-how James Lind, a Scots surgeon, finally conquered scurvy and the Navy’s indifference.

Author David Harvie illustrates his true story

PENICUIK ARTS CENTRE

2 West Street 7.45pm

ROSE’S LIME JUICE CAME FROM LEITH!

tickets £4 at the door: refreshments

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SATURDAY 9 NOVEMBER

THE SCOTTISH GUITAR DUO

Philip Thorne &

Selina Madeley

PENICUIK ARTS CENTRE : TICKETS £6

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SATURDAY 9 NOVEMBER

ANNUAL CRAFT FAIR

Penicuik Town Hall

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Exhibition: Friends in November

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FRIDAY 4 OCTOBER

Janet Paisley

AT PENICUIK ARTS CENTRE

8PM : Tickets £4

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Janet Paisley is one of Scotland’s most versatile writers. She writes in English and in Scots: poetry, fiction, plays, radio, television, screenplays, and literature for children, and her work is taught across the curriculum from primary to university.

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FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBER

WINE & CHEESE APPRECIATION

AT THE ARTS CENTRE

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August 2002:

EXHIBITION for PCAA’s 25^TH JUBILEE

June 2002:

At PENICUIK NORTH KIRK SATURDAY JUNE 22

Eliza R Gets the Wind Up!

PENICUIK’S CONCERT FOR CHERNOBYL

Penicuik North Kirk was filled with the music of the 17^th and 18^th century at the Saturday concert last weekend. Proceeds were for the Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline. The visiting Chernobyl children were there and they took part in the performance. The concert was arranged by Maurice Checker & Robin Mason. It featured instruments which had lain undisturbed for nearly 200 years at Kilravock Castle near Inverness where they’d once been used for musical recitals. Now rescued and restored, these and other early instruments were played by the Belwoodwind ensemble. Joan Fraser played the intricately decorated harpsichord and piano, Robin Mason took the cello, Lucy Cartledge the solo flute, Maurice Checker and Caroline Small the oboes, Pamela Turley and James Follan the clarinets, and Reiner Thonnes the bassoon. Soprano Rosemary McKerchar –and the children- provided strong voices. Introductions by the players filled in a lot of the details of the pieces and gave us the flavour of life and times in early Kilravock, Penicuik, and Belarus. Even old English church bands got a mention, with Thomas Hardy’s dialogue on primitive clarinets, serpents and strings.

The Penicuik Lion

The concert began with Locke’s incidental music to Macbeth, a fictional royal struggle of the ancient past reminding that Kilravock was close to something much more real in 1745. Penicuik was our next stop. Sir John Clerk wrote the Penicuik Lion, “Tuba Sontato Feralis”, three hundred years ago and his namesake was in the audience to hear it. It’s a stirring anthem, part of the suite written to commemorate Scotland’s ill-fated colonial scheme in central America. The powerful sound of the old instruments suited it well. 17^th century dances from Belarus followed, and the children’s voices rang out strongly in two White Russian songs. The players gave a delightful rendering of some Handel pieces, some from the Water Music. Then Lampe’s “The Dragon of Wantley” was played on cello by Robin Mason with plenty of energy and more than a hint of fun. The refreshments at half time gave everyone the chance to talk about the music, about Belarus, and about the instruments.

Woodwind from Elder Bush

Did you know that the stems of Scots elder make very effective oboe reeds? We heard the proof. Then, after three touching sea songs by Charles Dibdin, Rosemary McKerchar and the players soared into a marvellous performance of Mozart’s “Voi che sapete”. It was the kind of perfection you will never forget. The players didn’t stop there, but gave us more good things in two movements from Haydn’s remarkable Symphony No 47. One of them was a musical palindrome: the same played back to front. Music by Belarus’s Glinka brought the concert to an end. The new North Kirk venue had been excellent, and the audience went out into the midsummer evening inspired and uplifted by Belwoodwind and the Chernobyl children.

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SUNDAY 16 JUNE

PCAA visit to Little Sparta

The garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay

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SUNDAY 9 JUNE

PCAA herbal walk with Kit Acott

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PENICUIK ARTS CENTRE

THURSDAY 6 JUNE

PCAA Annual General Meeting

and an illustrated talk:

Perceptions of

ROSSLYN

CHAPEL

Angelo Maggi

May 2002:

PCAA presents at

PENICUIK NORTH KIRK

FRIDAY 24 MAY

Edinburgh Renaissance Band

tickets £5 (under 16: £2) at door or from PCAA

April 2002:

PENICUIK ARTS CENTRE : SATURDAY APRIL 6

DREW CAMPBELL

Midlothian’s writer-in-residence presents an evening of words and music with members of the Penicuik and Dalkeith writers’ groups.

March 2002:

PENICUIK ARTS CENTRE : FRIDAY MARCH 8

Penicuik Community Arts Association presents -

The KOSMOID Enigma

In an illustrated talk, author David Harvie tells the curious tale of how some of Scotland’s captains of industry became involved in an attempt at commercial alchemy on Clydeside a hundred years ago.

February 2002:

PENICUIK ARTS CENTRE

SATURDAY 23 FEBRUARY

Brian Osborne & Ronnie Armstrong