WELCOME TO DECEMBER’S CREATIVE WEEKEND
CELEBRATING THE WINTER SOLSTICE…
FRIDAY 19TH & SUNDAY 21ST DECEMBER 2025
NQL HQ ISLINGTON MILL
JAMES STREET, SALFORD M3 5HW
FRIDAY 19th December
TO CELEBRATE THE WINTER SOLSTICE, AN EVENING GOOD CONVERSATION, STORYTELLING AND MUSIC.
Join Not Quite Light, with a live performance of storytelling, poetry and live music as we reach the shortest day of the year.
This month, to help us celebrate the winter solstice, we welcome sound and performance artist
Fiona Brehony & musician and composer Simon Knighton who will present a beautiful, atmposheric sound piece.
PERFORMANCE 7pm-8.30pm
The studio will open at 7.00pm ready for the performance to begin at 7.30pm, with sound and music artists Fiona Brehony & and the award winning composer Simon Knighton. There are just 16 places, creating a unique, intimate atmopshere. We’ve done two of these now, and the feedback has been wonderful, people really do have a lovely time.
Ticket inlcludes two drinks ( wine, beer or soft drink ). Feel free to BYO too…
SOCIAL 8.30PM-11PM
Following on from the performance, there is no need to rush off.
Stay for a while, and enjoy a NQL Christmas Social in the studio, with music and more projections…
THE MUSIC / SOUND PERFORMANCE…
Fiona says ” Two Worlds was reimagined on the banks of River Irk, in Manchester UK. we stayed at a Travel Lodge beside the A627 Motorway near the source of the river, barely sleeping and waking before dawn to record nocturnal sounds and bird chorus rising with the sun. An eerie silence complemented darkness of branches as we recorded light appearing on water moving over rocks, watching manmade materials gathered in muddy crevices. As we walked on, morning engines stirred sleeping bodies in residential areas. Surprise roosters ran their beaks and local farm generators offered conversation. At some point, still before 6am, we began recording our thoughts, of two lively worlds present in our ears and recorders – the natural world on one hand, and the omnipresent sound of industry on the other. ‘It’s as though two worlds are happening, unaware that the other exists,’ we reflected. Two worlds made up of natural sounds of water, birds, trees moving with wind, and industrial sounds of cars, hums of machines and chattering silver materials.
This early morning inspired us to make a piece that deliberately contrasts these sound-worlds against one another, attempting to build a musical sound collage from the beauty and intrigue of both. We selected moments from the recordings and sculpted the sounds we wanted, making loops and building chords from pitch-shifted material. The sounds are then placed through a computer-based ‘generative’ process, in which the computer decides which snippets of audio to play next, based on probabilities decided by us. The composition therefore gene
And so, you will hear recordings from this day, with Fiona’s voice weaving in and out. Although you might hear the same sound or sentence more than once, they will never be repeated in the exact same way. Could it be, for this moment, that vital energy exists here? Listening together in this space.
DECEMBER SUNDAY 21ST
DAWN PHOTOWALK 6.45am – 8.15am
Join Not Quite Light for a contemplative dawn walk, exploring the quiet streets around Sacred Trinity church in Salford, and the surrounding Blackfriars area as the day begins. This is the weekend of the winter solstice, the shortest day, after which we being our journey to the summer months. The walk will be suitable for all levels. I’ll be on hand to offer tips and inspiration for photographs. The walk is suitable for any level, and you can bring any kind of recording device – smartphone, dslr or film cameras, or even no device at all if you simply want to stroll and absorb the sights and sounds arround you. The walk is about giving ourselves permission to slow down and closely observe the world around us.
WINTER SOLSTICE PHOTOWALK 2.30PM – 4PM
The solstice this year is 3.03pm, and so we’ll use this walk to celebrate the shortest day, and also the moment from which the days grow longer, and we head towards the summer months.
The walk will begin from the studio, and pass through the local area towards the Bolton / Bury canal. The walk is suitable for any level of photography, and I’ll be on hand to offer tips and discuss the local area, and its history. After the walk we’ll be able to spend sometime back at the studio, chatting about the photos we’ve taken and enjoying a cuppa…
TICKETS