ARKangel’s new 2025 show, Lullaby Of Harlem, which is coming to the St Ives September Festival, has received an award nomination after its first performance.
Katherine and Alan Clark, performing as ARKangel
The show has been shortlisted for the Buxton Festival Fringe Small Ensemble Popular Tradition award.
ARKangel — Nottinghamshire-based September Festival regulars Katherine and Alan Clark — will be performing Lullaby Of Harlem in the St Ives Society of Artists’ Mariners Gallery on Wednesday, 17th September.
Their 2024 September Festival show, Cider with Rosie, which sold out, has been included in the Arts Council’s 2025-26 Rural Touring programme.
Lullaby Of Harlem explores the birth of the blues through spoken word, violin, guitar, and vocals. With roots in West Africa, carried on Gambian slave ships to the brutal Caribbean and the isolated plantations of New Orleans, this rich and rhythmic music flourished in the spirituals of the Mississippi Delta.
Abolition gave African Americans a new freedom and a voice that became the powerful blues of the Deep South. With the Great Migration north, a cultural flowering in Harlem exploded the blues into the new age of jazz.
The soulful show is packed with gems from WC Handy, Mamie Smith, Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Rev Gary Davis, Duke Ellington, William Grant Still, Gershwin, and others.
