listening to Christmas: Aoife Clancy, Tommy Sands, Matt Heaton

Those who make music for a living enjoy listening to music as well, and that’s especially true at Christmas time. A number of your favorite musicians chimed in with their ideas this season, and quite a varied lot they choose, from The Chipmunks to the monks of Glenstal Abbey, from surf music to American folk to Latin hymns. They had so many interesting things to say that this lively conversation will fill several posts.


To begin, here are Christmas favorites from Aoife Clancy, Tommy Sands, and Matt Heaton.

Aoife Clancy calls on memories of family this time of year:

"You’re not going to believe who I listen to during the holidays...The Clancy Brothers Christmas Album! I know, I know...I was almost going to say Bing Crosby, but that wouldn't really be the truth. That album brings back such lovely memories of Christmas day for me at home in Carrick-on-suir. I was always the one in the kitchen with my mother preparing dinner, while the rest of the family set the table or just hung out in the kitchen and chatted.

We'd always put on that CD because it wasn't the usual Christmas songs. It had some really lovely carols on there along with the Wren song, and Christmas in Carrick, written by a relative of mine, Seamus McGrath. Actually myself and Robbie use quite a few of those carols in our own Celtic Christmas show.

It was kind of funny. If anyone saw us they'd think we were a bit mad, serving food while dancing and singing around the kitchen to the Clancy Brothers Christmas
album! Then it was off to my grandmother’s house in Ring, County Waterford where the rest of the relatives would congregate for a few drinks and sing songs till about three o clock in the morning...And believe me, everyone sang...that's why it didn't end till three AM.

Now my father has passed on, I live in the States and my other siblings have their own families to celebrate Christmas with. Ah well, at least I have my own copy of the Clancy Brothers Christmas CD to dance around to in my own kitchen this Christmas. Not quite the same...but it's still comforting to hear their voices, and I'll always have the memories, wherever I spend Christmas."

In his music, Tommy Sands considers ideas of peace and justice as often as those of love and of Irish history, and sometimes all in the same song. He has a seasonal album out called To Shorten the Winter. Here’s what he is thinking of just now about the holidays

"Christmas can rouse us around a common hearth of humanity so that the wintery elements, some of our own making, can be more easily chorused against. I tend to be drawn to songs that shield us from the onslaught of the jingle jangle commercialism and nudge us towards the warmth and needs of shared humanity.

I find inspiration in all sorts of songs, from John McCutcheon's Christmas In The Trenches to the Weavers line "Why can't we have Christmas the whole year around," from Patrick Kavanagh's Christmas Childhood to Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World.

Christmas can also gather us well beyond the borders of category and season to throw back our heads and sing whatever we feel like singing, like 'whack fol the daddio whack fol the daddio there's whiskey in the jar.'"


Matt Heaton often performs in a duo with his wife Shannon.Together with her he’s recorded a holiday album called Fine Winter's Night,which includes original songs and tunes of the season and traditional music they like for this time of year, as well. Matt says of his holiday choices

"Singing wise, it's all the stuff from Fine Winter's Night, which is always fun to bring out once a year. Recording wise, we have a box of Christmas cds. Favorites include:

Tuck Andress--Hymns Carols & Songs About Snow--genius solo guitar recording.
A Very Froggy Christmas--late 80s, kind of lo fi samples of frogs doing the hits. really tacky but we love it.
Dwight Yoakam--Come on Christmas--'cause there's nothing like a country Christmas record.

We also love listening to the service of Lessons & Carols from Kings College England. Best choral singing you'll ever hear.

and I'm putting the Los Straightjackets Christmas CD on my wish list for this year. Surf guitar versions of the classics!"


The Heatons and Tommy Sands have holiday albums out, and Aoife Clancy often does a series of holiday concerts in the New England area with her cousin, songwriter Robbie O’Connell. Sands and the Heatons tour at Christmas time as well. All worth hearing. Stay tuned here along the music road for more Christmas listening choices from your favorite artists, and other holiday music ideas to come.

you may also wish to see

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

Music Road: 6 of the best Christmas Songs

Kathy Mattea: Mary Did You Know?

holiday gift list: books

Several books to consider as you make out your holiday gift lists -- or at any time of year, really.

Rosanne Cash’s book Composed is, as she subtitles it, a memoir, not an autobiography. It is a mostly chronological reflection and narrative of her development as an artist and events in her life, well written, and containing a number of vivid stories and ideas that may well illumine your own path as an artist. Though Cash didn’t set out to with that in mind, I doubt she would be opposed to the idea. It is, rather, the story of one woman making her way, thus far, in the midst of a famous family and a career in which one has to seek out her own road maps. Read it for the stories, read it for the writing, read it to listen.

Andy Hall’s A Sense of Belonging to Scotland is a book where word and image meet. Hall is a photographer. He asked a number of well known Scots to reflect on a place within Scotland that means something to them, and he set out, over many miles and a good bit of time, to make images which would, in his words, see these places through their eyes. The people Hall asked for ideas include visual artists, musicians, athletes, business people, those in involved in broadcasting. some well known outside Scotland, some perhaps better known within its borders, people such as novelist Ian Rankin, musician Eddi Reader, actress Emma Thompson, actor Ewan MacGregor, and musician Donnie Munro. Their written reflections are as varied as the landscapes they choose, some quite straightforward, some nostalgic, a few poetic. The same could be said of their choices, and of Hall’s photographs of them. They range from places in Scotland’s cities to remote coasts in the Western Isles, berry picking regions to busy harbours, mountain to sea coast to loch to glen. Both the photographs and the stories to go along on varied occasions show the touch of history, the touch of the Creator, and the touch of nature.

Niall Williams and Christine Breen live in County Clare, in Ireland. They are both writers, Williams originally from Dublin, and Breen raised in New Jersey. They'd been living in Clare for some years when they decided to make a point of visiting other places in the island, and writing about them. They wrote The Pipes are Calling in 1993, but in some ways that makes it all the more worth reading. Some things have changed, some have not, and some have changed and changed back again. In any case, they both have a good way with words and with telling the stories of the people and situations they meet on their journeys, which include trips to Kenmare, Dublin, Donegal, Belfast, and Galway.

If there is a nuts and bolts minded person who likes how to books on your gift list, or someone who wants to learn about blogging or learn how to improve a blog, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, an ebook by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, might suit them very well.

Speaking of Ireland, The Country Cooking of Ireland is a varied and interesting -- and beautifully photographed -- look at Ireland's food. Some of the recipes are gathered from cooks and chefs at top restaurants, some inspired by old cook books, and some newly created by Colman Andrews, former editor of Saveur. Photography is by Christopher Hirschheimer.

If you’re looking for a bit of spiritual reading, or if someone on your gift list has questions about vocation, Parker J. Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak could be just the thing. It’s a short book, not exactly comforting nor intended to be, but thought provoking on many levels.

How about a Christmas story? Christmas in Harmony will do the trick for that. Set in small town Indiana, it’s tale filled with characters you will recognize whatever your small town experiences or big city neighborhoods. Gentle humor and real sense of place, and a main character who is a thoroughly human and not at all preachy Quaker pastor.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: Amy Grant: Mosaic

Music Road: Shannon Heaton: Oil for the Chain

Music Road: Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns

if you begin your shopping through one of our affiliate links, you'll be helping to support the work here at Music Road, too, at no increase in cost to you. thank you!

there's a link to a page with information on our policy on affiliate links at upper right.

first sunday in advent & music

First Sunday in Advent. A time, perhaps, to contemplate the gifts of winter, and to look for the peace and connection of shorter days and longer nights. I’ve always seen Advent as the time to as the Wexford Carol advises ‘consider well, and bear in mind’ the stories of the year that’s passing, and what may be in the one yet to come, as well as to be present in the moments of winter.

music to go along with these ideas

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

Music Road: Eileen Ivers: Christmas tour & album

The Farthest Wave

music and quiet

Thanksgiving and the first Sunday in Advent: both times for reflection and quiet, I think, in the midst of many things which may distract from that.


For me, silence is always a part of that reflection and quiet too, as is good conversation. And part of both of those is music.

Music to go along with these ideas

Music Road: Best Music, 2010
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: autumn music: preparation and presence
Music Road: late summer: two for the road







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Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday

Best Music, 2010

Music at its best is conversation, ideas, creation, connection...not to mention melody, rhythm, harmony, poetry, and life. The best music is both timeless and immediately relevant, as well. That last is but one of the reasons that choosing best of year recordings is a good challenge.

Ten of the best, below. Follow the links for longer reviews and links to places where you’ll be able to hear bits of the music.


Shannon Heaton: The Blue Dress Heaton is an award winning singer, songwriter, and composer who most often appears in a duo with her husband Matt and in the four person band Long Time Courting. For this project, however, she focuses on the music she makes with her flute. Lively, entertaining, thoughtful, original, traditional -- all those words apply.

Carrie Newcomer: Before & After Turning points and moments of change are the ideas which songwriter Carrie Newcomer considers through her music here. A turn of light, a stone in a river, a word spoken or unspoken -- and a gaggle of geese, too. A gorgeous voice and a gift for melody as well as a storyteller’s heart, all present here.

The Clancy Legacy Donal Clancy, Aoife Clancy, and Robbie O’Connell are al musicians with their own fine solo careers. They are also cousins, the next generation on from The Clancy Brothers, whose work brought Irish music back to the world stage. Songs and tunes presented with individuality and connection both, a bit like a fine session around the fireside with three really talented friends.

Altan: 25th Anniversary Collection Altan have been bringing the distinctive music of Donegal, in the far northwest of Ireland, across the world for more than two decades with fire, grace and intelligence. To celebrate, they made new recordings of old favorites with a pretty good backing band: the RTE Orchestra. A challenge, and one has to think, a lot of fun for both classical and trad players on those sessions. The result serves both well and makes for a very fine way to celebrate

Karan Casey & John Doyle: Exiles Return A really creative selection of songs, most to do with emigration and immigration of varied sorts. two fine voices. guitar work and arrangements well framing the songs while making trad seem as fresh as today -- which, of course, it is.

Heidi Talbot: The Last Star Heidi Talbot proves herself a master of finding ways to sing songs from the tradition that set them right into the lives of twenty first centuy listeners. No bells and whistles (well okay, maybe whistles of the trad sort), just straight up thoughtful and beautiful singing, lively melodies and arrangements, and a fine original from Talbot on the title song, as well.

Patty Larkin: 25 To mark her twenty five years in music, singer and songwriter Patty Larkin asked twenty five musicians she’d worked with over the years to collaborate, each on a different song from across her musical history. Songwriters, writers, thinkers -- you’re bound to learn something from this recording. As you will from all the recordings on this list, I think.

Michael McGoldrick: Aurora A journey through Celtic based territory of mind, heart, and soul led by McGoldrick’s flute.

Julie Fowlis: Uam Sea, lands, family, hardship, heartbreak, love, joy, laughter -- you’ll be able to hear them all in the songs Julie Fowlis sings, whether or not you understand Scottish Gaelic, which is the language in which she sings them. Uam was released in the UK last year, but in honor of its release in the US, it fits in this list as well.

Old Blind Dogs: Scotland Yet Music of Scotland that is both vintage and new, along with a take on the American folk song Copper Kettle which makes it sound as though it could have come straight from the highlands, some inspired piping and composing from newest Dog Ali Hutton, and a sparkling tune from Mattheu Watson, a musician you also met along the music road.

Lissa Schneckenburger: Dance You may get up and dance to Schneckenburger’s New England fiddle tunes, or you may choose to listen. Do both. You’ll be well rewarded.

Robin Spielberg: Sea to Shining Sea New perspectives on familiar music from the American song book from pianist Robin Spielberg. Chances are you’ll enjoy her instrumental versions of Aura Lee, Danny Boy, Sweet Betsy from Pike, and a a basketful more. There are several well chosen originals as well.



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Music Road: Best Music, 2009
Music Road: holiday gift list: Irish music
Music Road: holiday gift list: American harvest

Irish music recommendations

Eileen Ivers: Christmas tour & album

Eileen Ivers has long been interested in places where music and culture intersect, how the beats and rhythms of the world’s many musics connect and combine and relate to the Irish traditional music that is the center of her work. When it comes to Christmas time, it is to that center she returns. “My parents grew up in Mayo, in the west of Ireland,” she says, “ and we used to go back there , and just hang out with the grandparents . We were so blessed to have that sort of childhood, that connection.”

Ivers grew up in the Bronx, in New York, where she started playing the fiddle at age eight, and has followed that interest across the world. She was a founding member of the internationally renown band Cherish the Ladies and a star of Riverdance, as well as performing with rock stars and symphony orchestras. Those experiences of other musics have both deepened and broadened her interests and abilities in Irish music. That’s a line of thought she brings to her Christmas shows, and to her holiday recording, An Nollaig.


"There is so much joy in the season. I wanted to bring that out to welcome listeners in," Ivers says. "Just like ornaments on a Christmas tree, some of the tunes in An Nollaig have been lovingly passed down through the generations, and some are new."

That’s a combination which engages both musicians and listeners during the holiday shows. “I love it when they begin to sing along, or to clap and stamp in the fast pieces,” she says. “ There’s just such a great cycle going between us on the stage and the audience when that happens.”

That’s sure to happen at the gigs as Ivers and her musical compatriots make their way across the country this holiday season. Whether or not you’ll be able to see the show (and it is an evening not to be missed), you can share in the good cheer and the music through the recording An Nollaig. On it you will find reels and jigs from the tradition, Susan McKeown singing Don Oiche Ud i MBeithill/ One Night in Bethlehem, a song from Denmark, the carol Do You hear What I Hear? and Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, Bach with an Irish twist. It is an album that will quickly become part of your holiday celebration as well, and all the more reason to catch the musicians on tour this holiday season. The tour dates run from Alabama to California to Colorado to Vermont through the month of December.

Check for the one nearest you at Eileen Ivers' tour schedule page.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Cherish The Ladies: A Star in the East
Eileen Ivers: Wild Blue
Music Road: autumn & Thanksgiving listening, continued

autumn music: preparation and presence

The week before Advent begins, Thanksgiving is coming, a friend's birthday soon, thinking about and organizing journeys long and short, and creative work asking for differing sorts of focus. A season of turning, a time of preparation, and of being present in the moment.


Two songs that go along with this time of the year, for me,
each in its own way is about mystery:

The Castle Of Dromore from Cherish the Ladies, with Heidi Talbot singing lead, and I Do Not Know Its Name, from Carrie Newcomer.

These photographs are from a place not often associated with the turning leaves of autumn, the north and west of Florida. Tallahassee, to be specific.
















you may also wish to see

Voices: Cherish the Ladies
Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After


Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday

photographs copyright Kerry Dexter

Ireland: the best free thing

What is the best thing to do in Ireland that is free? This was asked of me recently.

Ireland can be quite a pricey country, that’s true. But The National Museum of Ireland, in Dublin -- which is four museums, actually -- is free. I like the archeology part best myself, with learning how the bog people and the Vikings lived, seeing the Ardagh Chalice, which I’d often met in schoolbooks, in the real, and meditating on a pair of shoes said to have belonged to Saint Bridgid.

It also doesn't cost anything to cross the border into the north of Ireland and walk the walls of Derry, or to look at the murals there-- quite a span of history in those two things. You can stop in at the bookstore and tourist point at An Chulturlann in Belfast, too, to brush up on your Irish language and Irish history, and get advice on seeing the city. Back over in the republic, you can walk the longest main street in Ireland, in Letterkenny in Donegal, and see the ancient tombs at Carrowkeel. Just about anywhere in Ireland you’ll find water, in lakes, rivers, and seacoast. A walk along the edge of the waters and a listen to their music reminds that Ireland is an island, and water forms part of its identity.

The best thing to do in Ireland that is free, though, is just that, to listen

*To people talking with each other -- Ireland has many regional accents and turns of phrase, and should you be in a Gaeltacht area you may hear conversations in Irish as well. These days, conversations in other languages, neither Irish or English, are equally common. Listen to the rhythm of speech, and perhaps, strike up a conversation if you will. Many Irish people are good and generous listeners as well as talkers.

*To the music, which you will find in pubs, and clubs, dance halls and concert halls, at festivals, in churches, along the street from buskers, in people’s homes, and on the radio. Not all of it will be traditional Irish music. In fact, quite a bit of it will not be. Trad lives a vibrant life alongside chart hits of all genres, though, and that’s a fine thing.

*To the sound of the waters, and the sound of the landscape. Those are part of the music, the people, and the history.

Ireland will speak to you through all these if you let it, and none of them costs a thing.

you may also wish to see


fine ideas for no cost ways to explore while you travel from Doctor Jessica Voigts at Wandering Educators, along with great pictures from the west of Ireland and other places, as well


for ideas about frugal and sustainable living, check out the patchwork living blogging bee, a project from Kris Bordessa of Attainable Sustainable and Melanie McMinn of Frugal Kiwi.

and for music to go along

Music Road: holiday gift list: Irish music
Music Road: ceol chairlinn: sharing music in winter
Music Road: music and hope: Derry

road trip music: American west

The Great American Road trip winds its way from the southwestern desert of Arizona, up through the Front Range and the Wasatch, through Colorado. Utah, and Wyoming, from the turn of autumn into the depth of winter. For listening, folk, country rock, songs of the west, and a cowboy Christmas.


Linda Ronstadt is an icon of pop music, whose work as spanned rock, country, Spanish, and big band music, just to mention a few of the musical avenues she’s explored. She is an Arizona native. To begin our western soundtrack, there’s Hand Sown Home Grown / Silk Purse, a CD reissue of two of her early albums. Check out He Dark the Sun and Life Is Like a Mountain Railway to hear how singing should be done. That's something Ronstadt was still a master at decades later when she returned to her hometown to record an album with long time friend Emmylou Harris. It is called Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions.

R. Carlos Nakai has collaborated with classical musicians, artists from Japan, and created all manner of other works. He too is from Arizona, and is a master of the Native American flute. A good place to hear his work is on the album In Beauty, We Return.

Gretchen Peters and Judy Collins both spent years that were important to their music in Colorado. Collins wrote a song called Mountain Girl that really gets that transition between mountain and city. A gifted songwriter in her own right, Peters recently looked at her western connections through the work of other writers on the album One to the Heart, One to the Head.

It is turning toward winter. In the coming weeks the focus here along the music road is on seasonal reflections and connections. Connecting the road trip with that, and with songs of the western states, take a listen to Michael Martin Murphey’s Cowboy Christmas, which comprises songs lively and reflective, in a thoroughly western take on the season.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: holiday gift list: American harvest
Music Road: music for Thanksgiving
Music Road: Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone
more music from the road trip

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I’m partnering up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’ll find there. Stop by and see what the Library has in mind to inspire travels through the west.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins


do you work in the arts or education and need to present your ideas professionally? I can help.

autumn & Thanksgiving listening, continued

In the second half of autumn. there’s gathering in of harvest and looking back toward summer, while heading into the work of winter.

Autumn is a very fine season all on its own, though, with work of transition, and work of connection, work of creation and work of preparation.


As you walk through the season, good musical companions are Hanneke Cassel’s For Reasons Unseen and Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s Harvest Home.

Harvest Home comprises an orchestral piece of that same name, done in collaboration with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra (now known as Orchestra Nashville), and a selection of tunes crossing landscapes of place and musical geography of the United States. . Ungar plays the fiddle, Mason is a guitarist, and other musicians you’ve met here along the music road sit in, among them Christine Balfa, John Kirk, Keith Murphy, and Paul Gambill, who conducts the Nashville Chamber orchestra for this outing. It’s a fine collection all around. Haymaker’s Hoedown, Prairie Spring, and Bound for Another Harvest Home are good ways to get an idea of the spirit of things, and you may very likely recognize another original tune, Ashokan Farewell.

Cassel’s album wasn’t designed especially for the harvest time of year, but the music she chooses for it holds a reflective idea, even in the fast paced pieces, that works well with the season. Cassel is a fiddle player, pianist, and composer whose work is grounded in Scottish tradition with dashes of Americana and Irish flavor , and in this case, music she learned while traveling in China, as well. Musicians you’ve crossed paths with along the music road sit in with Cassel too, among them Natalie Haas, Alasdair Fraser, and Lissa Schneckenburger. As is Harvest Home, For Reasons Unseen is an album to listen to all the way through, and with especial note of the Blackberry Meadow Footrace set, The Goat Whisperer, and the Dusky Meadow set.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: harvest time
Music Road: autumn skies

music, big pictures, and details

As you are traveling this winter holiday season, keep an eye out, and ear out, for both the big picture and the details. Good ideas to reflect on and practice when you are staying close to home, as well. Also, ideas to think about when listening to music.

























music to go along with these ideas
Close to Home

Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After

Music Road: ten songs

photographs copyright Kerry Dexter, from Portland, Maine (chain), Letterkenny, Donegal (head), midlands, Ireland (sheep on hillside), Cambridge, Massachusetts (musician's hands)

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Music Road: holiday gift list: Irish music

Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday

road trip music: New Mexico

The was a time when the town of Taos, in northern New Mexico, called itself the soul of the southwest. Granted, that was a marketing slogan, but one with elements of truth in those four words. As the Great American Road Trip travels through New Mexico, as the cottonwoods turn to gold in Taos, and snow makes its way from the top of the Sangre de Cristos into the roads leading into town. I’ll let the words and melodies of two musicians who have deep connections with the soul of the southwest be our soundtrack.

Taos Pueblo, a short distance north of the town plaza is both centuries away from the modern town and very connected at the same time. Once you pass the old cemetary and cross the cattle guard, you are in a different place, if you choose to be open to that. What you find depends on what you bring, in part, anyway.

Robert Mirabal grew up on the pueblo, taking part wooden flutes to learn how they worked, and seeing the connections and differences in the world on and off the pueblo. His work as a musician has taken him down many roads in many countries. For this trip through New Mexico, take a listen to a bit of his music that was inspired by sources close to home, on his album Taos Tales.

Tish Hinojosa grew up in Texas. It was in New Mexico, though, in Taos and in Red River, that she began to write songs, and to discover the heart of the vision that would inform her musical imagination of the west and southwest. Any of Hinojosa’s recordings would work as a fine soundtrack. Her first album, Taos to Tennessee and the lyrical re thinking of the sounds of the west on Dreaming From The Labyrinth are two good places to start, as is Culture Swing, an album which crosses borders among country, folk, Texas, Mexico, English, and Spanish.




photograph of Tish Hinojosa copyright Kerry Dexter


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Southwestern Imagination: Tish Hinojosa
Music Road: looking toward christmas: kidstuff
more music from the road trip

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I’m partnering up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’ll find there. Stop by and see what the Library has in mind to inspire travels through New Mexico, the land of enchanment.

For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

autumn & Thanksgiving listening

As autumn’s gathering in unfolds across the northern hemisphere and the season of Thanksgiving approaches in the United States, here are two quite different ways to approach this time through music.

Though stories vary as to just what happened and when, and just what was on the menu people, too, who had arrived from Europe to find new homes and members of Native tribes already living on the land joined to celebrate that early Thanksgiving. Since that times, connections and relations among the peoples have not always been as cordial. Joanne Shenandoah, who is of the Oneida-Iroquois Confederacy of New York state joins with Michael Bucher. of the Cherokee people, are both well respected songwriters and singers on their own. They’ve teamed up for Bitter Tears Sacred Ground, an album in which they offer original songs as well as giving the nod to three songwriters who explored the connections and disconnections of Native American life, Johnny Cash, Peter LaFarge, and Floyd Westerman. The musicians’ original songs and those of other times find connection, a connection only emphasized by Shenandoah’s singing of The Star Spangled Banner, which is offered almost as a lullabye.

It was thinking about passing along songs to her daughter, songs her parents had sung to her, that got Robin Spielberg started on what became her album Sea to Shining Sea: A Tapestry of American Music. Spielberg is a classically trained pianist and composer with many awards and albums to her credit. For this project, she did include several original pieces, but most of her selections are from the melting pot of popular American song. Let Me Call You Sweetheart, The Water Is Wide, Home on the Range, and Oh Shenandoah are just a few of the well loved songs that take on a fresh sparkle in Spielberg's thoughtful arrangements. Her guests include her daughter, Valerie Spielberg Kosson, on bells and marimba, Catherine Bent on cello, Kate Macleod on fiddle and guitar, Nancy Rumble on oboe and English horn, and Paul Henle on percussion.

here is another pair of recordings well suited for your autumn and Thanksgiving listening autumn & Thanksgiving listening, continued
suggestions for winter listening and holiday gifts to come as well, along with reflections on music and the season of Advent ahead here along the music road.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: autumn: music for memory, and for dance

Music Road: Top 5 Favorite Music Road Trips

Music Road: holiday gift list: music of Canada