The Swing Gals are Northern Ireland’s original and leading vocal harmony trio. The girls have been performing together for over 12 years and are renowned for their innovative vocal arrangements of swing, jazz and a variety of popular modern genres.
They are delighted to return to the Out to Lunch Festival after their successful sell out performance in 2018. The Gals perform with their own band and appearances with the superb 16 piece Indigo Big Band have delighted their audiences.
Today’s line up consists of Ruth Jennings, Clare Galway and Karen Kirby, accompanied by Kathy McKeagney. They will perform a varied programme of their sophisticated arrangements of songs from the iconic Andrews Sisters, ABBA, Diana Krall and the Sugababes.
Experience Mary Ann McCracken’s Belfast, as you walk in the footsteps of this remarkable abolitionist, philanthropist and social reformer. Mary Ann McCracken, who was born over 250 years ago, is intrinsically linked to the city of Belfast. She lived her fearless life championing causes, moving from place to place, always on a mission to make life better for those less fortunate than herself.
Hear too about her more radical nature. Her role in the work of the United Irishmen, the 1798 rebellion and beyond. How she was devoted to her older brother Henry Joy – hanged for his leading role in the rebellion.
This walking tour takes in the locations linked to her life, her endeavours and that of her family. You will be led by an experienced guide through the same streets she walked over 200 years before. This new walking tour starts at Clifton House, where Mary Ann’s thirst for philanthropic causes first began, and where her impact can still be seen today, and finishes near Belfast City Hall.
Planning your visit:
• Walking tour lasts approx. 2 ½ hours
• Please arrive 10 minutes in advance of the tour start time
• Tickets are £12.50pp*, and include a complimentary tea and coffee
• Walking tour commences at Clifton House and finishes in Donegall Square
• Booking in advance is essential due to limited spaces
• Belfast Visitor Pass and Concession rates are £11.25. Please present your Visitor Pass on arrival. For further information on the Belfast Visitor Pass, visit: visitbelfast.com
About the Mary Ann McCracken Foundation
The Foundation was officially launch in 2021 to promote the life and times of this remarkable woman and to explore her legacy and relevance in the 21st century. The Foundation have, to date, republished Mary McNeill’s biography on Mary Ann McCracken, produced an historical map of Belfast, and recently award bursaries to Ulster University Masters Students.
Original Language: Hindi Director: Farhan Akhtar 3h 3m
Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna play loyal friends that overcome various obstacles of life in a film that captures college life and the transition into adulthood like no film before it.
Three friends, Akash (Aamir Khan), Sameer (Saif Ali Khan) and Siddharth (Akshaye Khanna), discover that post-collegiate life will test their tight-knit bond. As sweet Sameer falls for Pooja (Sonali Kulkarni), an unavailable beauty, Siddharth risks everything to pursue an older divorcée named Tara (Dimple Kapadia) whom his friends and family find unworthy of him. Meanwhile, brash Akash travels to Australia, where he reconnects with Shalini (Preity Zinta), a girl he’d previously wronged.
‘The voice that rings loudest and clearest is Farhan Akthar’s, fearlessly answering the call to forward Bollywood cinema into a bright, hopeful future’ – THEMOVIEREPORT.COM
GoGo Penguin have been internationally hailed as electrifying live performers, innovative soundtrack composers, and as a collective who channel electronic and club culture atmospheres alongside minimalist, jazz and rock influences to create music that pulses and flows from the dancefloor to meditative inner-worlds, transporting us into brand new realms.
They appear tonight performing music from their 2020 Blue Note Records release, the self-titled GoGo Penguin, together with new music and favourites from their luminous back catalogue.
2022 also marks the touring debut of the band’s latest member, drummer Jon Scott, who brings his own uniquely propulsive style to the Manchester based trio’s exhilarating music.
GoGo Penguin are: Chris Illingworth, piano, Nick Blacka, bass & Jon Scott drums
Plus Joe Reiser sound production
We are grateful to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for the loan of the Steinway D Piano, for the purpose of this event.
‘The taut synergy between racing, pulsing, frenetic percussion and looping leaping keyboard rollercoasters… draw listeners ever deeper into their dicey slipstream’(****Mojo)
‘Powered by fluttering, junglist drums, slithering bass lines and an increasing bank of Eno-esque digital manipulations. Hypnotic stuff.’(The Guardian)
‘Glistens with niggling bass and stabbing piano chords …..contemporary British jazz’s great experimenters’. (Bearded)
‘Meticulously structured, deftly paced and futuristic … owes as much to 1990s drum and bass as to jazz …hypnotic and quietly epic.’ (****Music OMH )
To celebrate the legacy of Thomas McCabe, the man who successfully opposed the formation of the Belfast Slave Ship Company, Arborist will play a special show with a full band in the unique setting of First Presbyterian Church which McCabe attended.
Arborist came to the attention of critics with their debut single, the Americana tinged, Twisted Arrow, that features an astonishing duet with Kim Deal of The Breeders.
Their debut album Home Burial (2016) and the follow-up A Northern View both received glowing praise from the likes of The Guardian (“instant classic. ★★★★” ) MOJO (“…devastatingly bleak…upliftingly beautiful. ★★★★”) and Uncut 8/10.
Arborist has gained BBC 6music play from Cerys Matthews, Cillian Murphy, Gideon Coe and Steve Lamacq who called single Taxi, “one of those records that makes you immediately stop what you’re doing.”
Prior to the concert, historian Raymond O’Regan will give a brief overview of the times in which McCabe lived and actor/writer Cillian Lenaghan will perform an excerpt from his forthcoming play, Sugar based on McCabe’s life.
All proceeds from the concert will be donated to help modern day victims of trafficking and slavery.
Supported by Experience Belfast Group and Walking Tours
Lily We Need To Talk Now is a record Lily Konigsberg has been slowly chipping away at since 2016, revising and re-recording the songs over the years.
The eleven-track collection is her first proper full length, following her anthology of EPs and unreleased tracks, The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now, released in 2021 by Wharf Cat Records.
The new record is catchy the whole way through, like much of her poppy and plainspoken indie rock output that’s made her a fixture of the NYC underground in recent years.
Her voice twists and turns and dashes around her clever wordplay in new ways; there are hints of power-pop, pop-punk, and downtempo introspection, all dotted with Easter eggs of winking humour.
True to its title, this collection of songs is like a check in with herself. On That’s The Way I Like It, with backing vocals from longtime collaborator Paco Cathcart, she reflects on the feeling of “struggling with someone you love, and how you can get all evil about it, like a brat, like a baby.”
On Proud Home, she sings one of the records boldest earworm hooks (“You’ve got a lot of fucking things to be proud of!”) and tries to comfort a friend who has a crush on her mom.
“I really cracked myself up with the lyrics,” she says. “It’s kind of a Stacey’s Mom riff. I decided it’s a dedication to Adam Schlesinger [of Fountains of Wayne].”
Roses, Again is a new take on a familiar Lily tune (originally on Good Time Now) re-recorded at the request of her current live band, who have evolved the song on the road.
Currently receiving rave reviews from the likes of Pitchfork and NME, this will be Lily’s debut performance in Belfast.
Tipped by RTE Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, Double J (Australia) and Folk Radio UK as a rising star on the Irish folk and alternative scene, 2021 has been the breakthrough year for this emerging alt-folk artist Dani Larkin, with the release of her debut album ‘Notes For A Maiden Warrior’.
Nominated for ‘Best Album’ at Northern Ireland Music Prize(2021), and ‘Best Emerging Artist’ at RTE Folk Awards (2021), Dani Larkin has been an artist picking up speed with each release, and one that has been marking her mark on the industry, in her own way. With appearances last year at The Great Escape, Doolin Folk fest, Folk Alliance, and selected to open for Snow Patrol to sold-out venues of London’s Palladium Theatre and Belfast’s Waterfront Hall, as well as a special home show for Hot House Flowers – she is a live act not to be missed.
To mark the release of her debut album, she joined forces with the Irish Arts Centre, New York, for a special once off live show, and the album was picked up on several big folk editorial Spotify playlists.
She’s caught the attention of certain media too, including appearing as a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, as well as special guest on Panti Bliss’ podcast ‘The Panti Personals’ ahead of her embarking on her debut English headline album headline tour to close out a hugely successful year.
An artist renowned for her unforgettable live performances, her vocal takes centre stage, accompanied always by her impressive guitar and banjo playing. Larkin has the ability to blend the old and new perfectly through her songwriting, delicately weaving themes of Celtic folklore with the more modern day landscape of her own experiences.
“Brilliant songwriter, very much blending that love of place, family, time – and I always find her music enchanting. It just draws you in. She’s definitely an exciting artist to keep an eye on” Eve Blair – BBC Radio Ulster
“A fantastic album” RTE Arena
“Steadily emerging as a rising star on the Irish contemporary and alt folk scene.” The Irish Times
“Dani Larkin’s songs are mesmeric and tied to the old Gaelic world.” Stuart Bailie // Belfast Telegraph
“This is an examination of madness and loss,” says Brian Christinzio, the inimitable force behind BC Camplight. “I hope it starts a long overdue conversation.”
Fired by his ongoing battle with mental illness, Shortly After Takeoff is the final, and finest, chapter of what Christinzio calls his “Manchester Trilogy”, following 2015’s How To Die In The North and 2018’s Deportation Blues.
All three albums were created after the native Philadelphian had moved to Manchester. Like Deportation Blues, Shortly After Takeoff spans singer-songwriter classicism, gnarly synth-pop and ‘50s rock’n’roll, with Christinzio’s similarly distinctive, flexible vocal carrying a fearless approach to lyrical introspection, but the new album is a major leap forward in songwriting sophistication and lyrical communication.
The album has alreadfy been revered by critics, become a stalwart on the BBC Radio 6 Music playlist, and put BC Camplight back on the stage where he belongs. With a slew of tours and festivals on the horizon Christinzio, a remarkably relentless entertainer, will bring his immense new live show to the UK and Europe.
“It’s no fun giving an audience a standard show that they can get elsewhere” explains Christinzio. “Sometimes it’s intense, sometimes it’s emotional, sometimes it’s basically a fucking stand-up routine. I always like to involve the audience and make it memorable for everyone involved. I think we are one of the best live bands in the world and it’s an odd feeling finally getting an opportunity to get in front of loads of ears and eyes. In a perfect world I’d be able to organise a concert on the roof of the Home Office one day”.
Rachel Sermanni is a Scottish based singer/songwriter who makes the mundane moments mystical: shock-positive pregnancy tests in train-station toilets, coffee machine breakages, cold river swims, the regret of not saying ‘I love You’, the moon and how it pulls, bare feet on wood floors, the soft glow of a house plant, ‘what even is consciousness?’, strange dreams lingering in quiet mornings.
She brims with dreamy indie-folk pop that speak of the struggle and desire to flow, to love, to live, to feel. Sometimes, her songs speak of the rare moments of quiet-still, found in the midst of this struggle and desire. Rachel is a Jellyfish. Surrendering to the currents of the big sea.
Seolfaidh Inni-K an t-albam nua s’aici, Iníon, agus seolfaidh Éanna Ó Cróinín an t-albam úr s’aige, Píobaireacht na Mí.
Inni-K
Named by RTÉ.ie as “one of ten fierce women defining Irish culture”, Inni-K’s music draws on her extensive background in folk and traditional Irish music, as she ventures into new musical territories. Her songwriting career combines her unique approach to her craft with deft musicianship, evocative lyrics and ethereal vocals.
Inni-K’s new album of arranged sean-nós song Iníon sets out to create a re-hearing, in a way, of something dear, something essential, and in doing so, she has – with fellow collaborators – created a bold, new and contemporary experience of sean-nós song for her listener.
‘One of Ireland’s most exciting artists” Irish Times
Éanna Ó Cróinín
Tógadh Éanna Ó Cróinín i gceartlár na Gaeltachta, i Ráth Chairn, Co. na Mí. D’fhás sé aníos le cultúr gaelach, sheimhir na háite siúd, i measc amhránaithe agus damhsoirí sean-nóis, scéalaithe agus ceoltóirí na Gaeltachta. Thosnaigh sé ag foghlaim an cheol ar an fheadóg stáin ag aois an-óg, agus thóg sé dúshlán an phíb uillinn ar féin ag aois deich mbliana. D’fhoghlaim sé ceird an phíb i gclub na bpíobairí uillinn, NPU, i mBaile Átha Cliath, faoi choimirce Nollaig Mac Cárthaigh, Mic O’Brien, Seán óg Potts, Robbie Hannon agus go leor eile.
(2nd floor concert hall, no lift access, bring your own)
Doors 8.15pm | Unreserved Seating
Supported By
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The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and Out To Lunch are annual festivals of music, comedy, theatre, art and literature which take place in January and May in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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