ALAN MURRAY AND FRIENDS IN CONCERT
Saturday 10th October, 2026, 7.30pm
St James the Less Church Hall,
Broomhill Road, Penicuik
Mostly folk songs … happy, wistful, silly, and singalong.
07803 331592 or alanmurray350@gmail.com for tickets.
Alan is a singer, guitarist and songwriter, well-known to his friends (!). This evening will include voices, tunes and songs from Alan’s family and friends. There will be folk classics to sing along to, including some Rabbie Burns; also songs from Dougie MacLean, Kate Rusby and Richard Thompson. You might even get a morsel of McCartney or a tad of Taylor (Swift, not James!).
Alan’s own songs have been covered by the likes of Stravaig and the McCalmans – you’ll get a small helping of them, probably including “Call it Alba” – his greatest hit.
Tickets £10 each, including a finger buffet during the interval. Alan will offer two approximately 45-minute sets of music with a 30-minute break.
Funds to St James the Less Scottish Episcopal Church: registered Charity SC011288
News – lottery funding more folk to more folk
We applied for a grant to make our activities more attractive, accessible and popular.
WE GOT THE MONEY!!!
So – thank you National Lottery Awards for all Scotland.
We plan to acquire a new, better-and-lighter PA system, enhance our Zoom capability and install an induction loop system in our venue. The Lottery funded this on the basis that it was:-
- Getting musical culture to more people locally
- Enhancing opportunities for budding folk performers
- Spread the mental-health benefits of listenting to and making live music.
So – we’ll be offering occasional “open mike” nights and encouraging local performers to offer up short sets of tunes/songs in a “concert” setting. You can, of course, come and join in a session any Tuesday and expect to be listened to, but the Open-Mike sessions will be more organised affairs with an MC and a running order.
More about us …
We welcome performers and listeners equally. It’s a good, safe place to try out your “performing” skills. Yoiu can expect to be listened to appreciatively … this isn’t a pub session where the performers are simply human juke boxes! We’re not precious about it but we insist that, if we’re not all joining in (‘cos that’s what the performer wants) , listeners keep quiet and listen. We all started somewhere and we like to encourage tentative singers, players and readers to have a go, make mistakes (like the rest of us do!) and get gradually more confident.
We run our sessions in parallel on Zoom, to include those who can’t make it to the club’s venue and those we picked up during lockdown as distant Zoom-buddies. So – there’s a screen at the end of the table where the Zoomers get a chance to perform. You’d be surprised how quickly you feel like they’re in the room with you!
We meet in the Miners’ Club‘s lounge bar – a large, comfortable (but also cheery and COSY!) room that is large enough for most of our concerts and all of our singers’ nights. We will also be able to use the club’s large function room for any larger concerts, apart from the occasional collaboration with our pals in Penicuik Community Arts Association.
If you want to know more, or to be added tio our email list, please message us via our Facebook page.