Tribute to British guitar legend at this year’s Elgar Festival

One of the county’s most successful festivals has put together a one off, all star group to perform at the event.

The Elgar Festival – which runs from Tuesday 30 May until Sunday 4 June this year – will welcome Blue Enigma whose name pays homage to Elgar’s Enigma Variations, which will feature in the band’s set.

The band will play at the Royal Porcelain Works in Worcester on Saturday 3 June at 10.15pm, offering a nightclub style evening of entertainment.

The concert will feature a tribute to the life and music of Jeff Beck, who died earlier this year.  The group will be playing a number of instrumentals that Beck performed regularly throughout his career, including the Stevie Wonder composition ‘Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers’ which was written for Beck. 

The guitar/bass/drum trio – which is made up of Kenneth Woods, Joe Hoskin and Sean McNicholas – will also be playing a number of Ken’s originals, including at least three new songs, moving between the varied musical worlds of rock, jazz, fusion, blues, classical and country. 

Kenneth Woods, Artistic Director at the Elgar Festival said: “It means so much to me to be able to celebrate Jeff Beck’s legacy at this year’s festival. Like Elgar, he was a complete original, and an inimitable one-off who created a whole new, unique musical language on the guitar.” 

The set will also include an adaptation of the Elgar Cello Concerto, last heard at the Elgar Festival in the official Centenary Performance with Raphael Wallfisch at Worcester Cathedral.  The piece was Woods’ introduction to the music of Elgar as a youngster. 

He explained: “It’s the concerto I’ve played most often as a soloist, and conducted the most often with wonderful colleagues like Raphael and Sheku; I know other cellists, not least John Barbirolli, have conducted it and played it, but I may be the first guy crazy enough to conduct it, play it on cello and play it on guitar. It will certainly be a new take on it!”

Ticket cost £10.00 each.

Details of the trio include:

• Joe’s current projects include Cardiff-based Grateful Dead tribute band Deadedz and its sister Americana/Bluegrass outfit Lucky Truckers, as well as recently making his debut on tour with the country influenced Orange Circus Band.  One of Joe’s career highlights include his time with The Bare Knuckles Blues Band, then the affiliated band of world famous guitar electronics manufacturer Bare Knuckle Pickups;

• Sean McNicholas has been performing since he was 11 years old; his musical influences  range from The Beatles to Neil Sedaka, Coltrane to Janie Ian, Burt Bacharach to Jimi Hendrix and Lalo Schifrin to contemporary Hungarian jazz;

• Kenneth discovered rock music at the age of 11; Kenneth’s father is an amateur banjo and guitar player, so Ken grew up surrounded by fretted instruments, and was playing guitar, banjo and ukulele long before he picked up the cello. Having saved up for a year to buy his first electric guitar, Kenneth embarked on an odyssey that ran in parallel with his classical interests for more than a decade. As he entered his early twenties, he stepped away from the guitar following the breakup of his last serious band. While he continued to play for fun and to participate in the occasional one-off project, it was only in the last few years that he’s had the time and energy to return to his roots with projects like Blue Enigma. 

Kenneth concluded: “Club Elgar is about two things, having fun and knocking down the walls between musical genres. Most musicians love an eclectic mix of different kinds of music, and I’m no different. The idea of conducting Elgar’s First Symphony and playing a funk tune or a 12-bar blues on guitar in the same evening delights me, and I hope it entertains our audience.”

Launched in 2018, the Elgar Festival was established by decree of Worcester City Council and is traditionally held on the weekend closest to Elgar’s birthday, 2 June 1857.

Since it began – lauded as ‘Critic’s Pick’ in both The Guardian and The Times – the Festival has doubled in size and scale and championed Sir Edward to as wide an audience as possible.