Dolly Jolly
Preview by Peter Ashton

Tull Order
Preview by Peter Ashton

Talking Paul
Preview by Peter Ashton

One of Australia’s top singer-songwriters plays a gig at Talking Heads in Portswood Road, Southampton on Thursday February 19. It’s a rare opportunity to see Paul Kelly, a man who has been a professional for thirty years and is often described as “the Australian Bob Dylan.”
The sixth of nine children, Paul was born in Adelaide, Australia in 1955
and attended a Christian Brothers School, where he played trumpet and captained the cricket team. After leaving school, he wandered around Australia picking up odd jobs and a guitar along the way, eventually making his debut in 1974 singing a folk song in Hobart. Two years later he moved to Melbourne, joining the thriving pub-rock scene as Paul Kelly and The Dots, a hard-driving punk guitar band. Big local favourites, the band made two albums before breaking up in 1982.
There followed a fallow period for Paul which was broken by a move to
Sydney in 1984 where he wrote and recorded the album “Post” hailed as the best record of 1985 by Australian Rolling Stone. A remarkable double album “Gossip” followed, then “Under The Sun” and “So Much Water, So Close To Home.” Since then Paul has released a dozen more albums, written scores for films, and built up a huge reputation as an artists whose narrative songwriting style is infused with wry observations, bittersweet emotions and universal musical appeal.
Admission for the February 19 gig at Talking Heads is ?9 on the door; for more information ring 02380 678446. (©Peter Ashton 2004)

One of the country's finest harpsichord players returns to the Turner Sims
Concert Hall on Southampton University campus this month some twelve years after she first appeared there as part of a young artists series. For her classical recital on Tuesday February 10 at 8pm Sophie Yates performs a programme based around the music of Handel, a composer with whom she has become synonymous through her acclaimed series of discs for Chandos Records. The recital, which features two of Handel's suites and his Chaconne in G minor, also includes music by JC Bach, Scarlatti and Geminiani.
After studying at the Royal College of Music, where her teachers were Ruth Dyson and Robert Woolley, Sophie Yates began her career by winning the International Competition at the Boston Early Music Festival. As a result, she was invited to tour and broadcast throughout the eastern states of America. She was musician-in-residence at the University of Western Australia and has given concerts in Morocco and Syria - places not usually found on a harpsichordist's schedule. She performs regularly all over Europe and future recitals are planned in Denmark, Switzerland and Spain.
Nearer to home, Sophie specializes in tracking down original instruments
and the English virginals is a particular enthusiasm. She has performed on most of the playable virginals surviving in this country and is now working on a long-term project to commission a book of contemporary English pieces for the instrument.
Sophie broadcasts regularly on the BBC and WDR, and her contract with Chandos Records gives her the opportunity to explore different styles of early keyboard music. Her ongoing series of recordings of Handel's harpsichord music has received rave reviews from the critics. Gramophone said of her latest release 'this is brilliant and exciting playing that keeps you on the edge of your seat' whilst Fanfare USA described it as 'simply another triumph for Sophie Yates.’
Tickets are available from the Turner Sims Box Office on 023 8059 5151. (© Peter Ashton 2004)