Celtic Colours 2009 on the way

It’s time to begin thinking about October on Cape Breton. Your mind might be more on summer trips just now, it’s true. but the people of Celtic Colours International Festival have just announced a stellar line up of artists who will be appearing across the island in venues ranging from concert halls to school houses to churches to community centers -- Celtic Colours is a true community event, and that community is the whole of Cape Breton.

Artists from Ireland will be featured this year at the festival, which runs from 9 through 17 October. Though artists from Ireland often take part in the festival, this year a full two dozen will be on hand through the days of the gathering. “These Irish artists represent the best of the various traditions, including Donegal fiddling, the Irish harp, uillean piping, Irish and sean nos singing, accordion, sean nos dancing, and story telling,” says festival artistic director Joella Foulds. Harper Laoise Kelly from the popular group Bumblebees, fiddler and singer Maireád Ní Mhaonaigh of Altan, and sean nos singer Liam ó Maonlaí, who was a big hit at last year's festival, are among the Irish musicians who will participate.


Cape Breton’s roots run deep into Scottish tradition as well -- it is after all, part of Nova Scotia -- and this year adventurous harp player Catriona McKay and equally daring fiddler Chris Stout will make return appearances at the festival, as will fiddler Sarah McFayden from Orkney, who has played with Harem Scarem as well as Celtic big band The Unusual Suspects and is well familiar with Cape Breton, as she attended the Gaelic College at St. Ann's. Abby Newton and Kim Richardson are among the artists from the United States who will appear, and Le Vent du Nord, who nearly blew the roof off the festival club with a high energy jam a few years back, travel from their native Quebec again this autumn.

Cape Breton may be a small island in the northern reaches of Atlantic Canada, but its music and musicians have been heard around the world, and for Celtic Colours, many of them come home to join the party. This year, those artists include Kimberly Fraser, Wendy MacIsaac, and the Barra MacNeils.

In addition to the music, there will be workshops, art exhibits, talks on music, history, and culture, outdoor activities, and community meals. It is is time to begin thinking about October on Cape Breton. Details, schedules, links to to tourism information, and a lively discussion forum may all be found at the festival’s web site.


Tickets will go on sale July 6 at 9am Atlantic Daylight Time. They can be purchased online through the web site noted just above or by phoning the Box Office at 567-3000 on Cape Breton locally or 1-888-355-7744 (toll free in North America).


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Music Road: now playing: Cape Breton Radio Live take 02 there’s a slide show from Celtic Colours 2005 along with this post

Saturday Sessions: Emily Smith on songwriting

Thoughts on songwriting from Scottish singer and songwriter Emily Smith


“When I first started out, I would write songs using kind of the template of a traditional song, a story that you might find recurring in traditional songs,” Smith says. “I’d write my own version, or I’d take the traditional lyrics and write new melodies, which I still do quite a lot. But as the years are passing by I guess the subjects are becoming a bit more contemporary.”

“Some times I can write a song in a night and it’ll be a complete song and I’m quite happy with it. Others are spread over months and months. I have a little book,” she said, “and If I have an idea I write it down in the book if I don’t have time to sit down and finish it, or sometimes I’ll just get an opening verse, and I’ll write that down. Usually I can remember the tune. Quite often I’ll get words and melody at the same time. I know everybody seems really different on that but with me it usually comes simultaneously.”




This is part of the series Saturday sessions, which focuses on ideas about learning, teaching and creating music. Please add your own tips about all that below, and stay tuned for ideas from saltwater music specialist Del Suggs, guitarist Matt Heaton, folk Grammy winner Tim O’Brien, and others.

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Emily Smith: Too Long Away
Saturday Sessions: Matt Heaton on playing for others
Music Road: best music, 2008

Steve Johnson: Lowlands

Lowlands


Steve Johnson is a storyteller. That’s apparent from the first lines of the first song on his new CD, Lowlands. That first song is The Labouring Man’s Daughter, a ballad that’s traveled in varied forms across England, Ireland, and the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It opens the door to a gathering of songs, both familiar and less so, that have at their heart the power of story, and the power of connection.

Johnson usually likes to share these songs through informal sessions around his home base in the Bronx, New York. These are stories meant to be told, reflected upon, perhaps embellished and retold as they have been over time, stories drawn from Irish, Scottish, English and American folk music. There are a dozen of those, along with two songs whose composers are known, one a poem from the 1860s and another from the 1930s. What they all share is Johnson’s ability to express narrative through rich tone, thoughtful phrasing, and clear understanding of the lyrical and melodic ideas of the song he chooses. Though his back up cast is a stellar one, including Greg Anderson (who also produced the project), Lisa Gutkin, Sara Milonovich, Eamon O’Leary, and Natalie Haas, it’s Johnson’s voice and interpretations which center the album. Whatever your taste in music, if you enjoy good singing you’ll find much to like here.

Outstanding tracks include Wake Up Little Maggie, Molly Bawn, Blackwater Side, and The Rocks of Bawn.

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Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone

Jeff Talmadge : At Least That Much Was True

John Doyle: Wayward Son

cathie ryan: the farthest wave

Saturday Sessions: Matt Heaton on playing for others

Guitarist Matt Heaton, who plays, sings and teaches in the Irish tradition, talks about his ideas on helping students gain confidence in playing in front of others.

“I feel that in public and in class are pretty different. In a lesson, if someone is nervous about singing or playing, I just try to let him know that there is really very little riding on it, and that there's nothing to worry about. There's a certain amount of psychology involved, but it's usually possible to put someone at ease by leading by example. I try to keep the atmosphere relaxed.

Performing in public is a very different beast. The only thing to do is practice doing it, through low stakes things. The master classes I hold are designed to make students a bit nervous, to try and simulate the performance experience. Playing for friends and family, then at open mics and sessions are all ways to get more ‘stage experience.’ Ultimately, there's no substitute for actually performing on stage to get better at it!”

One place to gain such experience is at a music camp. “I love the residential camp experience, because it allows for a a real in depth, intense exploration of a topic. Being surrounded by music, and by people who are into it, is very inspirational” There are plenty of camps across the country and around the world, for kids and adults, beginners and advanced students, and in genres ranging from rock to folk to classical. Heaton is running one himself this summer from is Massachusetts home,,and it’s a twist on the usual residential camp experience. “The ‘camp’ I'm running this summer is an attempt go get some of that feeling on a local level, ideally making it easier for folks who can't get away for a whole week or two,” says Heaton of his two night a week series of classes. There are classes on theory for guitarists, technique ideas, and master classes on subjects including playing the bodhran and how to get a gig -- once you’ve mastered that playing in public thing -- or while you’re on your way to doing that.

Matt Heaton plays in a duo with his wife Shannon, who plays the fluter and sings. They both write music, and they both teach. Their latest album is Lovers' Well. You may find out more about about Matt’s guitar camp, the Heatons' touring schedule, and their other recordings at their website

This is the first of Saturday Sessions, a new series here on Music Road focused on ideas about teaching and learning music. Stay tuned through the summer (and perhaps beyond) for thoughts on this from saltwater music specialist Del Suggs, A list Nashville songwriter Gretchen Peters, and others, as well as more from Matt Heaton. Your ideas and comments are always welcome too.

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Music Road: intersections: words, music, and Robert Burns

Music Road: four ideas: songwriting

Music Road: Matt & Shannon Heaton: Fine Winter's Night concert

Sarah Jarosz: Song Up in Her Head

Song Up in Her Head

Texan Sarah Jarosz’s debut album is filled with a baker’s dozen of cuts which take their start in bluegrass and use that as a jumping off point to head toward folk, country, blues, and a few other things thrown in, a bending and blending of style and genres which you might almost expect from an artist raised in the Texas hill country. Jarosz sings in a warm, flexible voice that’s all her own, but reminding a bit of fellow Texans Rosie Flores and Terri Hendrix. She wrote eleven of the tracks, and a writer and a player, and in some her phrasing as a singer, she calls to mind Tim O’Brien -- they both favor musical adventure at every turn, adventure rooted in heritage music and speaking to the twenty first century.

O’Brien guests on the album, and Jarosz, who plays guitar, banjo, mandolin, and piano on various tracks, is also supported by an A list roster of other musicians, including Ben Sollee, Darrell Scott, Abigail Washburn, Stuart Duncan, and Aoife O’Donovan. Gary Paczosa, who has worked with Kelly Willis, the Greencards, and Alison Krauss among others, produced the project, leaving plenty of space both for Jarosz’s voice and the interaction among instruments.

I first saw Sarah Jarosz play in Austin about five years ago, and it’s been interesting to see her grown into her talents as a singer, player, and songwriter.
From all that’s said above, what you might not expect is that Sarah Jarosz is seventeen, a recent high school graduate, heading of to music school in Boston this fall. She offers an album that's both beyond her years and completely right for them, and for where she is as an artist.

Outstanding tracks on this release include Edge of a Dream, Fischer Store Road, Long Journey, and a cover ot the Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan song Come On Up to the House. Not so outstanding, not from her version of it, but from the song itself, a cover of The Decembrists' Shankill Butchers. If Jarosz wanted show that she can handle song with a dark edge, she should have chosen another way than this song about a murderous gang in Belfast during the troubles. That jarring note aside, it's a fine debut album.

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Music Road: now playing: Crooked Still: Still Crooked
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15 blogs to explore, and a blog award

A classical violinist, three chefs, a reporter who has made freelancing in the digital age her beat, an essayist who writes about cooking, gardening, and India, an Irish American musician who thinks in metaphor, two Scottish songwriters -- and a partridge in a pear tree? Well, not exactly. Vera Marie Badertscher, who writes the blog A Traveler’s Library, recently honored Music Road with an award as ‘A Lovely Blog.’ Turns out this is a bit of a tag team event -- if you are given such an award, one of the conditions is that you then pass along the recognition to recently discovered blogs you enjoy. Some of these aren’t exactly new discoveries for me, and a few of them stretch the definition of blog a bit, but they are each worth checking out.

Leap Little Frog is an occasional series of thought provoking musings, sometimes funny, sometimes reflective, sometimes poetic, and sometimes all those at once, by Irish American musician Shannon Heaton

Hilary Hahn: journal Hilary Hahn travels the world as a classical violinist. Look in on what she thinks about music, life, and the places she visits.

Blog: Speaking of Faith Speaking of Faith is, to borrow from their tagline, public radio’s conversation about religion and why it matters. In the blog, the show's producers, staff, and the host, Krista Tippett, talk about what goes on behind the scenes, how they make their decisions, and other ideas related to what they learn while working on the show.

Mary Pat Kelly is the author of the book Galway Bay,
a novel based on her family’s history. Here she writes about what she’s learning and experiencing while promoting the book.

Joel Carillet photography and thoughts from travel writer Joel Carillet, about his journeys in southeast Asia, the middle east, and elsewhere.

Word Count: freelancing in the digital age Michelle Rafter is a west coast based reporter who makes the intersection of reporting and electronic media her beat -- how freelancers work in this world, what they think about it, what’s going on now, what might be next.

Laurie Niles at Violinist Laurie Niles is also a journalist, and a classical violinist. She reports on and thinks about the world of music and music education through those perspectives

A Life Divided Sue Dickman lives in western Massachusetts, when she’s not in India. She writes about both those places, along with cooking, gardening, and other subjects.

A Year in Bread Farmgirl Susan, Kevin Weeks, and The KitchenMage trade recipes, tips, and ideas about all sorts of baking.

Emily Smith, a singer and songwriter and accordion player from Dumfriesshire in Scotland, writes about her life and music career with insight and humor at this blog on her myspace page

Flyover America travel writers Jenna Schnuer and Sophia Dembling trade observations and insights from their travels through the US between the coasts

About Last Night Terry Teachout writes about the arts, mostly but not always drama, mostly but not always in New York City

The Artful Manager Andrew Taylor writes about the business of the arts

Eddi Reader is a folk based muscian whose work has ranged from rock to Robert Burns. At the blog on her myspace page, she shares news about her music and gigs as well as thoughts about life which are often funny, offbeat, and poetic. not unlike her music.

IrishBlogs.ie is actually a blog aggregator -- ‘what Ireland is talking about today’ is one of its taglines. well, maybe not -- except when they feature Music Road, of course. still, varied views on all sorts of topics from the Emerald Isle including a section about Irish people on Twitter, and a section of blogs as Gaelige


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here's Badertscher’s list

Music Road: Reflections: five of the best

Dakota Lullaby: Albert & Gage

Dakota Lullaby


The joyous side of love and the blue side, the thoughtful side, and the funny one, the crazy bits of friendship and the thought provoking ones, the quiet of a northern prairie night and the voices of those who made history there --- you meet all these ideas in Dakota Lullaby, the latest album from Christine Albert and Chris Gage. There are a dozen songs on the disc, varying in melody from swing to folk to country to blues, in tone from raucous to funny to reflective. Though they are outstanding songwriters themselves, Albert and Gage didn’t write the music on this collection. In fact, the songs were written some thirty years ago.

Chris Gage grew up in South Dakota, where he met Tom Peterson and got to know several of his songs. Lives and times and circumstances diverged; Peterson stayed in the Dakotas, while Gage hit the road to play music, first with the Red Willow Band, and later with Roy Clark and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Albert was meanwhile honing her musical chops as a country and folk singer in New Mexico. Albert and Gage both set a course for the music center of Austin, Texas, where they met and formed a musical partnership and a marriage. Their live sets and their albums mix their own folk Americana country style songs along with well chosen covers of music by writers including Erik Moll, Caroline Herring, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte Marie -- and occasionally Tom Peterson. Last year, circumstances worked out that another friend copied some old tapes of Peterson’s songs on to a CD.

“As we listened in the truck late one night I felt like we had just struck gold in the Black Hills,” Albert says. “Song after song, all written some thirty years ago, flew from the speakers right to my heart, and I was a goner for those words, those melodies, that spirit.” It’s a meeting of singers and songs that seems meant to be. Gage’s high energy take on If I Die Tomorrow brings to life a person we have all known, or been, with hints of a Cajun second line in the background of Peterson's prairie imagination. Albert and Gage join up on Cuttin’ a Rug to create vibrant images that could be real, could be a dream, all set to a swing melody that perfectly matches the words. Albert, who does haunting folk vocals better than just about anyone out there, brings those gifts to Those Who Love, a song which balances a lover’s lament and trust in hope framed in the quiet of a a prairie night sky. Then there’s the title song, Dakota Lullaby. It evokes landscapes and people, making the past present and the present past. It’s a cut and a song which deserve to become country classics.

The fine songs and outstanding singing are backed by a varied and interesting support, including harmonica from Mike Stevens, pedal steel from Lloyd Maines, clarinet from Michael Austin, and fiddle from Kenny Putnam.

Songs to think about long after the record is done -- and to laugh, dance, and sing along with while it plays --songs of Tom Peterson by Albert and Gage make an inspired combination, and a lasting one.

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Christine Albert: Paris, Texafrance

Albert & Gage: One More Christmas

Matt & Shannon & Ian & Sylvia

Wilderness Plots: the dvd

Ashley Cleveland and The Celtic Tenors: Making Music Their Own

God Don't Never Change

Hard Times



Ashley Cleveland and the Celtic Tenors are not singing together on the same recording -- though it’d be an interesting project if they decided to try that some day. What they are each doing on new recordings is stepping out of what’s expected of them, of what’s familiar, and further taking on the challenges of offering fresh interpretations of familiar music. The classically trained Irish tenors get into classics of another sort, music from the canon of North American folk music, from Stephen Foster to Bob Dylan to Ian Tyson. Christian rock Grammy winner Cleveland turns her talents to the highlights of Black gospel, music from the Reverend Gary Davis, The Fairfield Four, and the Edwin Hawkins singers, among others.

The Tenors are, as you might expect, smooth and clear and crisp in their interpretations; Cleveland is raunch and sass and edge. Each collection has its own power, power achieved by the artists’ staying true to the spirit of the music they offer, and true to their own individual understanding of and respect for that -- and conveying that truth with passion. Maybe you won’t fall in love with their interpretations of these songs; then again, maybe you will. It’s a safe bet, though, that listening to how they approach the music, what they offer on these recordings, will expand your understanding of how to make music real.

If you’d like to check out just one cut, on The Celtic Tenors album Hard Times
I’d suggest Shenandoah, and on Ashley Cleveland’s God Don't Never Change My God Called Me This Morning. Odds are, though, that you won’t want to stop listening at just one song.

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Music Road: Songs for an Easter weekend

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World Ocean Day: music of the waters

Climate, commerce, culture, and myth all converge at water’s edge. Even if you’ve never seen an ocean, the world’s waters play a big part in your life.

Monday, 8 June, is World Ocean Day. On that day, the organizers of the event suggest that you wear blue and tell two in honor of the oceans of the world . The tell two part means tell someone two things they don’t know about the world’s waters.

Perhaps you’ll learn about and share music of the oceans. Work songs and love songs, songs of regret and songs of celebration, the oceans and those who work on them and live by them continue to inspire music of all sorts. From Gloucester to the Apalachee Bay, from North Uist in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland to the China Sea to the Straits of Magellan to Galway Bay and back again, and all seashores and waters in between, there’s great music and inspiration for music in and on the water.

Explore a bit of that water based music at the links below, and find out more about World Ocean Day here.


saltwater music: Del Suggs

Jennifer Cutting and the Ocean Orchestra

Souls of the Sea

Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave

Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone

Yellowhead to Yellowstone and Other Love Stories

The landscape of western north American speaks with a voice of mountain, high deserts, plains and arroyo, river, waterfalls, and dry gulches, towering pine and persistent scrub, blue sky and snow sky, horse, and wolf, and eagle, wide open spaces and walled in canyons, and always, ever changing light. Ian Tyson is a writer and singer who has always understood that landscape and its inhabitants, and translated that understanding into song and story. So he does on his latest release, Yellowhead to Yellowstone.

He opens with the title track, a story framed in the journey of a wolf from Alberta to Montana, and the ideas of finding a new life while remembering the old, going forward with loss and accepting changes, deciding what to pass on and what to leave behind. It’s a unique and powerful song, and perhaps the heartbeat of the album. Ross Knox is a story song of western history, also about people living with change and distance, and so, you might say, is the more personal song Lioness. Loss and change, and connection, and trust, regret and forgiveness and plenty of room to think about all that, are hallmarks of Tyson’s thinking here through ten songs.

Those hallmarks have been present through his five decade career, a time which has songs including Four Strong Winds, Summer Wages, Eighteen Inches of Rain, Someday Soon, and Navajo Rug as just a few of its mileposts. Tyson’s voice is different here, weathered a bit by surviving struggles with virus and and strain. It suits the songs, though, and it’s still Ian Tyson, no mistake about that. He will turn seventy six in September, and mark more than five decades of work as a musician. It will be a well deserved celebration. Yellowhead to Yellowstone adds to the reasons.

-->our congratulations to Ian, who has been nominated for solo artist of the year at the Canadian Folk Awards, which will be given out in Gatineau, Quebec, on 21 November

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Gift: A Tribute to Ian Tyson

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Music Road: Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet

creative practice: sessions

There often seems to be quite a divergence between classical music players and those who play trad or folk music -- and the listeners who prefer one over the other sometimes get at odds too. Whatever your musical preference, though, there's a lot to be learned from the other side.

I was thinking about this as I read
this report of a master class with top classical violinist Itzhak Perlman. One of the things he does in it is challenge students about different ways of playing a piece of music. To me, coming from music where sessions and jams and song swaps are common, that's how much of what he's teaching is passed along there -- and some the same cautions apply.

There's much to be learned from going deeply into a piece of music one way, and much to be learned with playing and hearing it different ways. It all helps with connection, and understanding.

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Music Road: Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas: In the Moment
Music Road: Hanneke Cassel and Christopher Lewis: Calm the Raging Sea
Music Road: a short film about julie fowlis

Natalie Haas, Hanneke Cassel, and Julie Fowlis are all musicians who are grounded in traditional music, and play it professionally now. Along the way, though, they each chose to follow a university course leading to a degree in classical music.

Violinst, whose editor Laurie Niles wrote the Itzhak Perlman story, is a very fine site most often attuned to the thinking of classical and jazz players.