We're coming to the end of what has been a very busy year for the band. As well as the usual gigs up and down the country and in Europe we've been busy working on various challenging projects and collaborations.

One of the most exciting of these was the Baghdaddies Big Band which performed at the Glastonbury festival and at Sage Gateshead. We invited some very talented friends to join us, namely Brendan Murphy (percussion), Peter Tickell (fiddle) and Julien Batten (accordion). Also on stage were Monica from Colombia and local lass Claire – our lovely belly dancers.

We also travelled far and wide with The Flying Dragon Circus spending a month in Beijing before touring in England and finishing the run at the world expo in Zaragoza, Spain. The show, directed by Pierro Bidon, was a blend of western and Chinese circus styles and performed by English, Chinese, French, Brazilian, Mongolian and Israeli artists. A lot of the music was written specially by Yang Le, a highly respected Chinese composer. The band was joined on stage by three Chinese classical musicians playing pipa, arhu and bamboo flute.