Previous Events
10th April - Free history talk: How did a knight train for battle?
10/04/2019
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
How did a knight train for battle? Where did he learn his skills? How do you put on a full suit of armour? Learn the answers to these questions and more about the training of a knight and the development of armour from the 11th to the 15th century.
Talk by Pete Lawton.
Free. Please arrive early to avoid disappointment as space is limited
Toffee Music & Mithril
Thursday 2nd May 2019
Retuning to the House by popular demand, Toffee Music is Mike Lydiat and Dave Markham. TOFFEE is an acronym for "Two Old Fellas For Evening Entertainment"! Dave has been 'entertaining the troops' for more than 40 years and Mike first 'trod the boards' in 1962. Between them they have a century of playing experience! This will be one of their final gigs, as they have nearly achieved their target of raising £50,000 for charity!
For more information, please visit their website. Here's a short video filmed during a previous appearance at Bishop's House!
Mithril are a trio of Nick on acoustic guitar and the twin vocals of Sami and Dave. They cover a variety of classic and modern songs, stripped waaay back, including tunes by the likes of the Foo Fighters, Carly Simon, Bon Jovi, Brian Adams, Del Amitri and many more.
Their Facebook page
Entry: £5 divided between Bishops House and Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity. So here's your chance to have a great night out and support two good causes at the same time!
Mother Of Vinegar / Emily J Electric
Friday 8th February 2019
Mother of Vinegar is a collaborative spontaneous arrangement of sound featuring a core of three performers (Mark Hadman, Lyn Hodnet and Ashley Tuck) each with contrasting approaches to the practice of music. Mother of Vinegar is the loss of control on the margins of expectation. Mother of Vinegar is giddy heights built on a systematic foundation. Mother of Vinegar is the perverse succour of a corrupted teat. Mother of Vinegar is the yeast that ruins wine.
featuring guest Nick Robinson guitar/loops
Hear here: https://motherofvinegar.bandcamp.com/album/then-be-content-with-silence
Emily J Electric
will play a unique electronic music show electrified with live acoustic and electric wind instruments. Building on a solid classical education in flute playing, she is now a professional, experienced performer with infectious energy and an impressive track record of international club and festival appearances. Shows include Shambala festival, playing with the Exploration Music DJs at Parisian venues such as Glaz'art and Batofar, and her residency at the 'Elektrisch' nights in Berlin. Expect high-energy fun and surprises!
Book here: http://nickrobinson.info/booking/
Ancient Armenian Music Fusion - Arsen Petrosyan and Jenny Bliss
Sunday January 13th
Armenian duduk master Arsen Petrosyan joins singer and multi instrumentalist Jenny Bliss ('fantastic' Sean Rafferty, Radio 3) for a unique collaboration. The plaintive voice of the duduk is the iconic sound of Armenian music. Elizabethan lute songs, haunting Armenian melodies, virtuosic baroque sonatas for violin, evocative settings of Rumi poetry by Jenny Bliss, jazz and free improvisation will be woven together to create an unforgettable experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjkxARMRM9ohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfHZGYiKkAo&fbclid=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVFhkp74sWo
Doors open 7.30pm for 8.00pm start
Tickets https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ancient-armenian-music-fusion-arsen-petrosyan-and-jenny-bliss-tickets-53775052630
Arsen Petrosya is a graduate of the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan, where he studied under renowned duduk master Gevorg Dabaghyan (Shoghaken Ensemble, Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble). From Charentsavan in Armenia, Petrosyan has toured extensively internationally and is currently a soloist with the Armenian Traditional Music Ensemble (Yerevan) as well as having recently created his own group, the Arsen Petrosyan Trio. Petrosyan has participated as a soloist with the Naregatsi Ensemble. His debut album “Charentsavan: Music for Armenian Duduk” (Pomegranate Music) was released in November 2015.
Jenny Bliss studied at Purcell School of Music as a gifted young violinist and specialised in early music at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Holland. Jenny has played with many of the UK leading period-instrument ensembles such as the Academy of Ancient Music, Gabrieli Consort and others. Jenny crosses musical divides easily and has played in the Jazz fusion Quartet Talinka, with the Medieval Baebes, and in a duo with with harpsichordist and jazz pianist David Gordon. She is a songwriter and composer, especially inspired by the nature, myths and legends of Glastonbury where she lives.
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ancient-armenian-music-fusion-arsen-petrosyan-and-jenny-bliss-tickets-53775052630
Antique Doll + Frank Birtwistle
Saturday, 9th February
Local 'slightlydelic' folk duo Antique Doll describe their music as 'moth like nursery rhymes created in our front room'. They went down particularly well last Autumn and we are delighted to have them back.
Rarely playing live but featured on BBC6 Music's Stuart Maconie (Freakzone) Gideon Coe and selected by Tom Ravenscroft for his 6Music Recommends show.
Listen: https://antiquedoll.bandcamp.com
'Spooky lysergic-child-song folksters' (Dann Chinn, misfitcity.org)
'..haunting female/male vocal harmonies that recall eerie '70s kids TV shows like Children of the Stones and The Owl Service as much as they do Donovan, Vashti Bunyan or The Wicker Man soundtrack...' (Shindig Magazine)
Support from Frank Birtwistle - spacious and meditative instrumentals with sweet, melancholy chord progressions on classical fingerstyle guitar.
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djZwkeAzmCo
Doors open 7.30pm for 8.00pm start Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/antique-doll-frank-birtwistle-tickets-53920838680
Bell Lungs / Antique Doll
Friday September 28th 2018
Doors 7.30pm for 8pm start
Bell Lungs, aka Ceyan Hay, is a one woman band, who uses layered electric guitar and violin, tuned percussion, field recordings and effects to create shifting atmospheric soundscapes with elements of psychedelia, folk, improvisation and dream pop. Weaving through is a remarkable and disarming voice described by David Keenan of The Wire as 'elemental' and by RaveChild as “a truly remarkable voice, like cut quartz”.
Ceylan, who hails from Edinburgh, is playing at Bishops' House as part of her European tour promoting her new release, “Suk Ninmyo”, a cassette tape (with download code) of instrumental sound experiments.
Listen: https://bell-lungs.bandcamp.com
Antique Doll are a slightlydelic folk duo from Sheffield, described by Shindig magazine as: ''...haunting female/male vocal harmonies that recall eerie '70s kids TV shows like Children of the Stones and The Owl Service as much as they do Donovan, Vashti Bunyan or The Wicker Man soundtrack...'
Rarely playing live but featured on BBC6 Music's Stuart Maconie (Freakzone) Gideon Coe and selected by Tom Ravenscroft for his 6Music Recommends show.
Listen: https://antiquedoll.bandcamp.com
Bishops' House is a tudor house museum situated at the top of Meersbrook Park in Sheffield. This is an intimate setting with great atmosphere and sound, but capacity is limited so please book to avoid disappointment.
We are unlicensed but you can bring your own.
Tickets are £6 in advance, a small number of tickets will be available for £7.50 on the door but please book to avoid disappointment.
Åyusp / Freelake
Friday October12th 2018 7.30pm
Another excellent double-header of electronic music.
Åyusp
A new collaboration between Graham McElearney and Paul Mills, born out of a common love for our favourite German electronic music, influenced in particular by all the usual suspects - the mighty Tangerine Dream of course (especially the golden line up with Peter Baumann) , along with Neu, Harmonia (and basically anything with Michael Rother in it!), Kraftwerk, Ash Ra Temple, Klaus Schultz, Popol Vuh, Brian Eno etc etc....
ÅYUSP are working not only on their own material but also doing a bit of "Audio Archaeology" along the way, and have recently recreated an excerpt from Tangerine Dream's 1975 York Minster gig, which up to now has only existed in bootleg form...
Freelake
Prepared electronica with live instruments- a cross genre journey in a wide sonic landscape exploring the possibilities of rhythm and sounds, using Ableton, Korg MS200, Microbrute and Wavedrum, with looped electric harps, bowed electric bass and Idiopan. Freelake is the alter ego of frostlake , spectral psych-folk artist and member of the improvising rock band Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere, all found on www.discus-music.co.uk
SOLD OUT
Juxtavoices
Saturday December 7th 2019 3pm and 4pm
Sheffield's groundbreaking antichoir, Juxtavoices, are back with their piecewritten specifically for Bishops' House. Juxtavoices will be using the actual fabric of the building and its mysterious sounds and spaces in order to create an unforgettable sonic experience for the audience. The result is a very interesting experience - very atmospheric and could possibly be disturbing to younger children.
We will be previewing the piece in a brief performance at 3pm, while the house is still open to the public, and then again at 4pm with some extra material.
Juxtavoices is an anti-choir of 25 mostly untrained voices whose repertoire includes members' own compositions and arrangements of classic modernist poems and found texts. The scores provide structure but freedom of pitch allows improvisation to shape the detail so that no two performances are ever the same. Audiences are unfailingly surprised by the Juxtavoices sound. Some try to name-check composers in the avant-garde tradition but none quite fit. Some shudder at the dark theatricality, some hear the humour, some are outraged while others feel an irresistible urge to join the ranks. This is singing on the edge of not-singing or vice versa, a music only previously heard in a sound-poet's dreams. The group enjoys unusual acoustic spaces - furnace floor or bear pit or library stairwell - as well as churches and more conventional concert venues. It hopes to create a chord which will startle the ghost of Thomas Tallis. Directed by Martin Archer and Alan Halsey Juxtavoices uniquely combines the outer reaches of improvised music and innovative poetry.
Admission free
David Bostwick - “Decorative Plasterwork and Carved Woodwork in Bishops House”
Wednesday January 9th 2019 7.30pm
This talk will examine the decorative plasterwork and carved woodwork in Bishops House and explore how it relates to that in other houses in Sheffield and North-east Derbyshire area during the 17th century. It was all being done by a group of craftsmen living in Norton and Greenhill.
Free, but please arrive early to be sure of a place.
Nancy Fielder - “The News of Christmases Past”
Wednesday December 5th 2018 7.30pm
Editor, Nancy Fielder, will talk through stories and photos which have appeared in The Star over the last century throughout Advent and Christmas. Be prepared for a few festive laughs along the way on this tour of Sheffield news in the jolliest of seasons. Nancy also invites readers to bring their old photos which she will look at after the talk and may then use in the paper.
Free but please arrive early to be sure of a place.
Neil Carver - “Wings Over ‘Steelopolis’ Aviation and Sheffield: 1866-1914”
Wednesday November 7th 2018 7.30pm
This talk will examine how Sheffield reacted to the possibility, then the reality that man could fly. It will chart the development of flying clubs in the city and the role played by some well known actors on the Sheffield stage. It will also reveal that Sheffield has unexpected links, not only to some of the most famous (and sometimes eccentric) pioneers of manned flight but also to one of early aviation’s great unsolved mysteries.
Free but please arrive early to be sure of a place.
Mike Higginbottom - “Temples of Sanitation”
Wednesday October 3rd 2018
Sanitation was the prime environmental concern of developing societies in the nineteenth century. The growth of conurbations, especially in London and the industrial north of England and lowland Scotland, presented local and national government with urgent, desperate problems – water-supply and sewerage.
Practical solutions took most of the nineteenth century to achieve, and in the process of engineering the healthy sanitary condition which later generations take for granted, the politicians, managers and designers of the nation’s water-supply and sewerage systems left a wealth of high-quality buildings, gigantic engineering works and attractive landscapes across the country.
