Get your Jazz weekend revelry off to a fabulous start with Folk Fusion collective Enw. An alt hybrid folk fiesta for your hips, head and heart under the ancient sycamores on the Cathedral Green
Enjoy our Pilgrim’s Repast and a glass of wine before the concert, in the beautiful grounds of Brecon Cathedral…
Friends, Breconians, Book-lovers...
This Summer we are committed to bringing you Author events that enlighten, enthuse and perhaps most importantly, soothe. The world is a tricky, testing and tenuous place right now (to put it lightly) and we hope to provide you with a still-point, a haven, a spot to sit, listen, breathe and think (or not think!). And all our Author events are free - there shouldn't be any barriers to healing should there?
So...
On Thursday June 26th at 6.30pm we are thrilled to be hosting Jay Griffiths for the next in our series of Summer Author events to discuss her new book How Animals Heal Us (Penguin).
Originally from Manchester but a long-time resident of Mid Wales, Jay is an award-winning Author of Fiction, non-Fiction, Memoir and Journalism. A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Jay is a recipient of the Hay Festival International fellowship, a member of Academi and is a Tutor and Reader across many disciplines.
Pet-owners and animal-lovers instinctively know that animals heal. This new book offers the evidence, drawing widely on scientific discoveries, history, and Indigenous knowledge...
We meet a pot-bellied pig who saved her owner's life, lions who guarded a girl from kidnappers, dolphins and whales rescuing people in danger, and dogs who can smell cancer and phone the Emergency Services.
Animal sounds, from insects to birdsong and the purring of cats, are directly medicinal and their presence can heal the pain of loneliness. Animals, including donkeys, can be natural therapists for the hurt psyche, alleviating trauma, fear and depression. In this original, revelatory and exuberant book, Jay Griffiths explores how animals can have a role in every level of healing, from the individual to the collective, guiding us in how we might create societies that are healthier, fairer and kinder.
Wolves may be teachers of ethics; monkeys and dogs can object to unfairness and bees take collective decisions. Animals are irresistible medicine for a healthy culture, animating the arts with spectacular vitality and verve, as poetry knows.
Open-hearted, playful and wise, How Animals Heal Us puts animals at the heart of a restorative vision of health.
We do hope you will join us
Leigh & Nicky Xx
Praise for How Animals Heal Us
'No book has changed my thinking about Nature more quickly and more fundamentally than this moving, essential work. Nobody writes about Nature - the world and us in it - with more beauty and grace than Jay Griffiths. She senses connections so deep and so resonant that they ring on and on in my mind.'
- Brian Eno
‘A wise, deep, and tender account of animal healing for humans, written in lyrical language that sings with compassion. This is one of my favourite books of all time’
-Pascale Petit
'A pure praise poem to the more than human world, a poem filled with love, respect and joy. It thrums with wit, wisdom, understanding and research. But mostly the joy of being connected to life, from the smallest insect to the great whales.'
-Jackie Morris
How Animals Heal Us is a book of boundless passion and compassion. As she explores the worlds of animals, Jay Griffiths make the case for a different way of living: a joyous, vital inclusivity. This is how a book should be - genuinely mind-expanding.'
- Tom Bullough, author of Sarn Helen
Join us on Thursday June 5th at 6.30pm for bilingual readings from this new poetry anthology. We will be joined by poets: Eluned Smith, Grahame Davies, Matthew M C Smith, Mat Troy, Jo Mazelis, Nick Rawlinson, Gareth Writer-Davies and Natasha Gauthier
Write that book - Writing Workshop with Adele Nozedar
A Guided Walk on Mynydd Illtud Common. Explore the rich history and natural beauty of Mynydd Illtud, in the Brecon Beacons National Park, on a guided walk led by Julie Bell, Director of Brecon Beacons Tourism and Gold Brecon Beacons Ambassador and Sarah Price of Walk Hay
Join us for an evening with Andrew Green, best-selling author of "Wales in 100 Objects" as he introduces us to his new book "Voices on the Path - A History of Walking in Wales.
We are so delighted to be hosting Professor Jeff Opland for the launch of his tenth volume on Xhosa Literature - on Thursday November 21st at 6.30pm.
We are thrilled to be hosting Horatio Clare this November to discuss his new book 'Your Journey Your Way - How to Make the Mental Health System Work For You' (Penguin Books).
A highly acclaimed bestselling Author, Broadcaster and Lecturer whose very many works cover travel, memoir, nature and children's fiction, Horatio Clare grew up on a remote hill farm in the Black Mountains - an idyllic but isolating childhood that has informed all his writing since. His first book 'Running For The Hills' documented a beautifully almost lawless childhood in the Welsh hills including the breakdown of his parents marriage and their subsequent divorce with an honesty that startled his own family.
Whatever his subject, Horatio's writing is lyrical, immediate and brutally honest. His 2021 memoir 'Heavy Light' - aptly subtitled 'a journey through madness, mania and healing' is the candid often shocking account of his own breakdown at the end of 2018 and his subsequent sectioning and treatment at Wakefield Hospital.
'Your Journey Your Way - How to Make The Mental Health System Work For You' is it's natural follow-up - a deeply researched and visceral exploration of the current mental health system that asks serious questions about whether it is working and how things might change.
Book a table
Join us this weekend for all your food, drink and literary needs during this years Brecon Baroque festival…
Opening Hours
Friday 11th October 9.30 to 4.00 and 5.30 to 7.30 for pre-concert supper (bookings only)
Saturday 10 to 5
Sunday 10 to 5
Join us for a free lunchtime literary and musical event on Friday September 27th at 1pm
International Velvet - How Wales Conquered the 90’s Charts
Jazz infused Delta Blues? Hot dang! Paul Keddle and his cool as cats band of musical men assemble to bring you a foot-tapping, hip-swinging, scrumptious Festival weekend closer to remember
What are Jazz Weekend Sunday afternoons made for? Bella Blue of course. Join us for delectable Jazz and Blues from one of the smokiest soul-filled voices around. An outside bar, sun-streaked skies (?!), and one girl and her Blues guitar celebrating four decades of incredible music in beautiful Brecon
One of the UK's hottest Jazz ensembles led by the gorgeous Susanna Warren bring us an exhilarating feast of sassy Hot Club Jazz, Gipsy, Swing and sooo much more for an absolutely simmering Jazz Saturday evening on the Close
We are thrilled to bring you an exciting new quartet - Blue Haddock - featuring Composer, Improviser and Pianist Rod Paton; Coren Sithers on saxophones; Liz Exell on drums and lan Cooper on bass
Our Jazz Festival Weekend revelry begins with new Folk Fusion collective Enw
An alt hybrid folk fiesta for your hips, head and heart under the ancient sycamores on the Cathedral green
Join us for a beautiful pre-concert supper
Join us for a beautiful pre-concert supper
Brecon resident Grahame Davies reads fom his newly-published Seren volume A Darker Way. This collection of poems and songs traces a hard-won but redemptive path between idealism and irony, failure and faith.
The reading will accompany an exhibition of paintings by Brecon artist Jess Hinsley whose striking image of Pen y Fan provides the cover picture of the book.
Those GLORIOUS musicians Afternoon in Paris are bringing a feast of Christmas Jazz to The Hours Cafe & Bookshop on Friday December 15th at 7.30pm
First published in 1988, Shifts is one of the most important and influential novels to come out of Wales in the late 20th Century.
