A fabulous fundraising night to help reach the £20,000 target New Galloway needs to release the £800,000 Big Lottery funding awarded last month!

Scott Joplin, the ‘King of Ragtime’, is in the news just now on the centenary of his death, and we have our own resident and respected pianist and Joplin expert here in New Galloway. Come and hear a selection of Joplin’s beautiful work and other greats of Ragtime in a relaxed cafe style atmosphere with bar, cocktails and Southern States inspired tapas to share!

The son of a slave, Joplin was a pioneer of Ragtime, a fusion of Black American folk music and European classical music. Composer of two operas as well as his Ragtime works, his music has a spirit, vitality and inventiveness that is ‘as difficult to play as it is lovely to hear’. Ragtime paved the way for jazz and is regarded as the birth of American music. Enjoying a renaissance in the 1970s with the release of ‘The Sting’ (1973) which featured Joplin’s famous piece ‘The Entertainer’, it has remained popular ever since.

Saturday 22^nd April, New Galloway Town Hall. Doors open at 7pm, tickets £10 on sale from CatStrand or The Smithy, New Galloway, by calling 07967 959 511 or emailing ngcommunityshop@gmail.com