For bookings please email : steve ‘at’ cosgraveandbanks.com. T : +44 (0)1803 782219, M : +44 (0)7957 855458. Rural touring scheme promoters, please click here. For promotional materials – images, posters etc, click here.
For additional info, interviews with Mike and Steve, and their availability for radio / TV sessions, please contact John Crosby Music Publicity, www.johncrosby.plus.com, M: 07920 260824.
Our first CD, Warp & Weft, was officially released 12th August 2016, and has received great reviews (see Reviews page). You can hear the CD tracks on the Audio/Video page.
Click here to see video (in two parts) of our 20 minute set at the Villages in Action menu launch, May 2016.
Below you can listen to a live recording of our first gig. The recordings were made very simply with a small digital recorder, so please don’t take them as representative of the sound quality you can expect. And, of course, the arrangements, and our playing have improved substantially since this gig (which was July 2015). For brevity’s sake we have left out our pithy, witty introductions.
Our current programme is based around our debut CD, “Warp & Weft”. You can see the set list with some notes about the tunes and songs here: Cosgrave & Banks – set list – May 2016
We can supply photos, and fliers / posters for over-printing.
You can follow us on facebook, and Twitter, @CosgraveBanks.
LIVE 4.7.15, @ STOKE GABRIEL : FIRST SET
1. Moscow Set – Great trad Russian tune, followed by a well known Macedonian tune and a Rumanian “geamparale” – a 7/8 dance.
2. Valse des Pastauriaux (Breton, by Jacky Molard), Sweet Nightingale (Cornwall). A “celtic coupling” of a lovely tune with the much loved Cornish folk song.
3. Swedish Polskas. Steve learned these lovely 3-time polskas from fine Swedish fiddler, Jonas Akermund. The tunes are from the Dalarna region of Sweden.
4. Tjønneblomen (Waterlilly) – a beautiful tune from Norway, with Steve playing Hardingfele, the national instrument of Norway. The tune is by Gjermund Haugen; Mike heard it from the playing of Norwegian fiddler, Annbjørg Lien. Very popular at concerts.
5. Madre de Dios – a song by Steve, telling the remarkable and epic story from 1592 of a Portuguese treasure ship, the Madre de Dios, captured by an English privateer off the Azores, and brought back to Dartmouth, Devon. Anarchy broke out when world spread that the ship held £1 million worth of treasure (spices being the most valuable). Queen Elizabeth 1st begged Walter Raleigh to return from London to his home country to restore order, which he did. The tune is 13th century Spanish.
6. Scottish Set : Herr Roloff’s Farewell (by famous Scottish fiddler, James Scott Skinner) – The Duke of Roxborough’s Farewell to the Blackmount Forest (tune by famous piper, Angus McKay) – The Mathematician (James Scott Skinner)
8. Oliver Schroer set – lovely tunes from the album Jigzup, by the fantastic Canadian fiddler who sadly passed away in 2008: Horseshoes and Rainbows, Angsar’s Jig, December 16th.
LIVE 4.7.15, @ STOKE GABRIEL : SECOND SET
9. Waltzes – Vals Micheline (trad. France), then a Breton waltz (by Jacky Molard), then a 5-time waltz by Dartmoor-based accordionist, and great exponent of French dance music, Steve Turner
10. Rumanian Dances. 3 of the traditional dances that Bela Bartok ‘collected’ in 1903, with Bartok’s arrangements re-arranged. Some juicy chords here. And the second tune has a delicate arrangement with Mike on whistle, Steve ‘pizzicato’ fiddle.
11. The Maple’s Lament. A beautiful song by American bluegrass singing fiddler Laurie Lewis. The violin is remembering the days when it was a living Maple tree.
12 . Hargalaten. Tune from a Swedish traditoinal song, which tells of a group of people who skip church on Sunday to go dancing in the hills instead. The devil turns up, naturally, and offers to play fiddle for their dancing. Great ! How kind ! So he plays, they dance… and dance… he doesn’t stop, they can’t stop dancing… they wear out their shoes, their feet, their legs, etc… until just a circle of skulls are left dancing on the ground ! Charming !
13. Lovina. Lovely tune by contemporary Finnish folk accordion player, Maria Kalaniemi, who Mike admires very much.
14. Ducks On Ice / The Wrong Glasses – Two sparkling spanking new tunes by one Mike Cosgrave. The audience certainly dug this WORLD PREMIER performance ! Steve was mighty relieved to get to the end in one piece !
15. Into The Day. A song by Steve, inspired by a painting by his friend Ron Pyatt, which shows a tree in the centre, with night on the left, day on the right, and by Ron’s journey through a life-threatening illness.
16. Flood & Ebb. A tune by Steve, which Blue Jewel recorded on their Dart Songs album, and which became a firm favourite among Blue Jewel fans. The bass line of the guitar part represents the eternal rise and fall of the tide.
17. I’ll Tell Me Ma / Reel. A rollicking ending, where you will hear the audience as much as Mike and Steve, and shows what a great time the audience were having!!
ENCORE
18. John o’ Dreams. The beautiful song by Bill Caddick, to send the audience home with a warm glow in their hearts !