Dan Fry leaves Magenta leaving Dutch fans "high and fry"

Magenta's bass player, and brother of guitarist Chris, Dan Fry has announced that he is leaving the band to focus on his other non-prog projects. Dan's last gig with the band will be their headline set at the Winter's End Festival in Stroud on the 13th March.

This means that the band have been forced to cancel their Dutch appearances in May at the Boerderij and the W2, though it is thought that Dutch band Mangrove will continue to play.

The band say that they'll be taking this opportunity to focus on studio matters, such as their Real World live album, Christina's solo album and the next Magenta album.

A statement from the band says: Dan has been a fantastic servant to Magenta during his 4½ year tenure with the band. Both his playing skill and his onstage enthusiasm have, quite rightly, made him a favourite with the fans and have helped build Magenta’s considerable reputation as a live act. However, Dan now wants time to pursue his own musical projects outside of Prog and we respect that. While his departure is a huge disappointment to us all, he remains a great friend to the band and we can’t thank him enough for his remarkable contribution. He certainly will be a hard act to follow. We are currently holding auditions for Dan’s replacement so if you’d like to throw you hat into the ring (so to speak) we’d love to hear from you.