WOMAD

The Singer and the Song

31st July on the

Learning about performance - bringing your songs before an audience.

In the morning Chris and Andy will discuss using a microphone - where it picks up and where it doesn't, amplifying your instrument, where to stand on stage and pacing your performance - learning to take your time and techniques for slowing down. Chris and Andy set out to give you the skills on which to build a successful performance.

In the afternoon Chris and Andy will continue working with students on individual and group compositions, giving input into developing ideas and exploring how to critic each other's work.

There will be an opportunity to look at traditional songs, how we can inhabit them, make them our own and take them somewhere new.

Chris Difford Biography

Chris Difford came to fame as front man and songwriter with east London new wave pop icons Squeeze. After writing such classics as ‘Cool For Cats’, ‘Tempted’, ‘Up The Junction’ and ‘Black Coffee In Bed’ as well as releasing thirteen albums and touring the globe, Chris decided hang up his blue suede shoes and in the words of his official biog, ‘take the waters’. This new found stasis allowed him to concentrate on his first love, song writing, and he went on to write with the likes of Elton John, Trilok Gurtu, Marti Pellow, Willie Mitchell and the legendary Lamont Dozier. Chris has also given innumerable song writing workshops, including special webcasts from his Sussex studio involving Turin Brakes, Jane Birkin and Nitin Sawhney, to name but a few, and songwriter shows at the Half Moon in Putney. The lyrics he wrote for the film ‘Still Crazy’, earned him a coveted Ivor Novello award, which has taken pride of place on the mantelpiece of the Difford home. A recent two-year song writing partnership with Marti Pellow gave birth to more than 150 new songs and the chance to work with some other very fine tunesmiths. Chris also collaborated on a new album with friend and producer Francis Dunnery and has recently toured with Elvis Costello and Jools Holland.

Andy White Biography

Northern Irish songwriter Andy White plays WOMAD Charlton Park, Sunday July 26, before taking the songwriting strand of the WOMAD Summer School at Bath Spa University, July 27-31. At the festival, Andy will preview his forthcoming album 'Songwriter' (Floating World), on release this September.

It's been twenty three years since Andy burst onto the UK music scene with his debut album 'Rave On'. "Yer Man's Brilliant" proclaimed Melody Maker, and the singer the UK press called 'Belfast's Bob Dylan' or alternately 'Ireland's Billy Bragg' was born.

Since then, Andy has become very much his own man. His lyric-driven acoustic rock, which owes as much to David Gray or the Waterboys as Dylan or Bragg, has become more engaging-and his social commentary more relevant-each year.

Andy has been closely involved with WOMAD for a number of years, sharing its core values and appearing at many WOMAD festivals worldwide. In 2000, the WOMAD Select label released 'Speechless', a live performance album featuring Andy's best-known songs and poems.

Lead track on Peter Gabriel's current album 'Big Blue Ball' is 'Whole Thing', a song Andy wrote with Peter, Karl Wallinger, Geoffrey Oryema and others at a Real World recording week.

Andy's career highlights include winning Ireland's Hot Press Songwriter of the Year award, recording and touring as the A in ALT along with Liam O Maonlai and Tim Finn, and working and writing with the some of the great names in the music world-the Finn Brothers, Sinead O'Connor, Van Morrison.

Andy's new album 'Songwriter' was co-written over the past few years with a number of collaborators, and recorded live in the studio in Vancouver, with a rootsy all-star line-up. A shift from the layered textures of his current album 'Garageband' which was recorded in Andy's new home of Melbourne, Australia, and Real World, and mixed by old friend and national treasure John Leckie.

As MOJO magazine said about Andy, "From rage to sage, it's not too late to discover one of our best kept secrets."

http://www.andywhite.com
Click here to sample Andy's sounds

Andy White Products At Our Store

• Speechless
• Big Blue Ball