Although 2008 was a successful year for Touchstone supporting the Oyster Band and a great gig at Crawley Folk Festival (amongst others), long term differences forced a major change within our ranks. Sadly we said goodbye to Steve and Dave our long term rhythm section, and Harriet our fiddle player.

We would like to thank Steve and Dave for their immense contributions to the success of the band over many years, and particularly to Steve who engineered and produced our recordings so well since 1991. We wish them all success with their new musical ventures in 2009 and beyond.

Bonnie and Mark have formed a new Touchstone with great new members and have significantly strengthened the sound, vocal line up, repertoire and fun within the band. There are re-workings of all the favourite songs, and some surprises from the past, plus one or two selected covers and new material planned.

This is the line up for 2009.

Bonnie Flitney - Vocals, percussion
Mark Orchin - Guitars, mandolins, vocals
John Sandford - Bass guitar, piano, vocals
Rowena McArthur - Flute, recorders, vocals
Ruth Stevens - Fiddle, vocals
Marianne Hillier-Brook - Drums, percussion

Within the new members, Marianne is a regular drummer for the legendary Herbie Flowers and works in Herbie’s Rockshop tutor team with Mark, Jon leads the well known Ditchling choir ‘Vivace’ (TV’s last choir standing finalists) and is a member of folk outfit ‘The Beamers’, Rowena is an experienced folk musician and long-term friend of the band, and Ruth an experienced fiddler both on the folk scene and orchestral!

Rehearsals have been tremendous fun over the winter and we have some great bookings for 2009, including Crawley Folk Festival on Saturday 27th June, Eastbourne Lammas Festival on Saturday 1st August, a support to Waterson Carthy being discussed for Burgess Hill in March, and a major re-launch event in the early summer in Mid-Sussex., and hopefully some exposure within the ‘Acoustic Sussex’ network So please watch the website which we will update more regularly now.