Maurice pays a visit to Lisburn's Island Arts Centre

Maurice has been writing and performing for over 30 years and plays an amazing 150 gigs every year.

He played in rock and blues bands around Belfast before forming his own band in 1976.

Three years later he turned professional and has continued to learn his trade as he travels and gigs, absorbing cultures and rhythms as he goes.

His amazing stage presence and trademark folk and blues guitar picking has earned him a hugely enthusiastic audience across the acoustic music circuit throughout the UK, Ireland, Europe and beyond.

This stagecraft is one major reason why he has now built an enthusiastic audience on the acoustic music circuit throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland to add to his many admirers in continental Europe.

Another reason has to do with the painstaking way in which he has re-invented himself in recent years to appeal to a wider audience.

In 1987 he was blitzing the local scene back home in Northern Ireland with his own R&B band, Shades of Blue. But he found himself more and more drawn towards acoustic styles. The transaction speeded up in 1992 when he worked a season playing solo in Greece and then visited Egypt.

Something clicked into place in 1993, he bit the bullet and spent months working 8 hours a day to develop the new and complete style of folk and blues guitar picking which, along with finely crafted lyrics, is now his trademark.

Putting in all that hard work at an age when many people feel they have already cracked it produced instant results, his powerful own brand of contemporary folk, which won him the folk section of the International Showcase 1993 at the Limerick Arts Festival.

Since then he has been writing, recording and touring constantly in Ireland, Scotland, England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and the USA.

Maurice will be joined on the night by special guest Catherine Ashcroft and will be supported by local singer Kyle John Suckling.

For further information or to book tickets, priced 12, contact the Island Arts Centre Box Office on 9250 9254.