Rich pickings...

Beautiful stuff eh? It’s always a little sad when a talented Brummie (or adopted Brummie for that matter) leaves the City for somewhere else. That’s life of course, the world’s ruddy massive and there’s no reason why any of us should stay in one place but still, they’re missed. One of those who packed his trunk and headed off down under (which is about as far from Brum as you can get) is Rich Batsford, a lovely chap and a darn fine musician to boot. Back in the day he was also one of the driving forces behind Project X, something which I’m ashamed to say pretty much passed me by at the time, but there’s a wonderful Wikipedia article on it that’s well worth a read. 

I was fortunate to catch a couple of his solo gigs before Rich left and they were truly beautiful evenings, just Rich, his piano and an open door to his soul. Adelaide’s a heck of a long way to go to see him again but luckily he’s ‘popping’ (I’m pretty sure the number 11 goes as far as Adelaide) back to the UK soon to perform his show, Classically Chilled Piano the Edinburgh Festival, and squeezing in a rare hometown gig in Brum too. You can catch him at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, 11 Park Road, Moseley on Saturday September 12^th, 8pm. Tickets £10/£7. Highly recommended.