The 2018 mid-summer tour began at St Magnus Cathedral, Isle of Orkney and finished in Sussex on 21st June (midsummer’s eve in) Brighton and Bexhill Festival on 22nd June. Richard cycled between each concert on this three week, 1,000 mile, musical adventure and played British folk music, Durrant originals and music by JS Bach all from his brand new double album STRINGHENGE. You can pre-order your album, CD or vinyl.

Stringhenge is Richard Durrant’s latest creative adventure – a wistful, peculiarly British, acoustic affair full of neolithic imagery, densely woven tunes and unusual venues.

In Stringhenge the maverick guitarist and composer is living on the folk/classical cusp playing his own distinctive, solo guitar music alongside a fascinating collection of other English melodies. He also introduces his trademark arrangements of unaccompanied Bach juxtaposed, for the first time, with British Isles folk tunes. The effect is striking, almost as if he’s using the high baroque to unlock the hill barrows and henges of Britain.

Stringhenge

The inspiration for Stringhenge was Richard’s ‘life changing’ concert guitar, built by Gary Southwell – the Lincolnshire Luthier. Southwell’s work speaks for itself (see his website and prepare to be stunned) and the guitar at the centre of Stringhenge is beautiful in many ways, but notable mainly for the fact that the back and sides are made from an English, black, oak tree that was growing more than 5,000 years ago and then preserved in the anaerobic mud of East Anglia.

Says Richard: “This guitar has an almost sacred presence and Stringhenge grew out of my relationship with it. It led me to commission the Uffington Tenor Guitar from Ian Chisholm, to write loads of new music and to gather the images for an entirely new show.”

Southwell

Gary Southwell A Series Black Oak Guitar

At one time the guitarist and composer lived in a tumbledown, 11th century, Benedictine priory in Sussex at the feet of the famous Long Man hill carving, providing reinforcement for the his desire to connect with the landscape. The artwork used for the Stringhenge was created by his sister, Ann Durrant, using material copied from ancient British rock carvings and turned into prints and lino cuts. Ann works in a mobile studio built into an old bus which has its own wood burning stove and printing press.

There are yet more layers to Stringhenge. The Southwell concert guitar features several, tiny “cup and ring” images taken from British rock carvings, whilst the Uffington Tenor has a shining, silver Uffington Horse on its headstock. And some of the venues on the Stringhenge tour are connected in some way with the sense of prehistory conveyed by these ancient carvings; one concert is in sight of the famous, white horse, another at the feet of the LongMan of Wilmington, and one very close to the site in Norfolk where the oak tree grew all those years ago.

Uffington tenor

Uffington Tenor Guitar by Ian Chisholm

Richard continues: “I have a deep love of our landscape but I’m also aware this is a particularly ugly time to be labelled patriotic, so I have struggled to steer a clear path. My solution is to embrace my musical, artistic perspective. This enables me to feel more ‘forensic’ and to body-swerve the murky detritus of our current politics.”

Stringhenge is as beautifully produced and richly visual as any of Durrant’s tours of recent years and Durrant plays the two protagonists, those incredible guitars, as brilliantly as ever. But he is also a clever weaver of intriguing tales and with these, and his real, roots music, he manages to link the Neolithic to the 21st century.

Richard has the last word: “When I’m up on the Sussex Downs I often wish that I could look inside the hills. When I play music it’s almost as if I can.”

Stringhenge has been followed up by Richard’s new album Rewilding.

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