Music for memory, and for dance

As the slant of light turns towards autumn across the northern hmeisphere, as the edge on the wind heralds the drawing in of colder weather to come, it is time to go on a musical journey, as Robin Spielberg takes fresh view of familiar classics, and Lissa Schneckenburger invites to the heart of history, and of dance.


Home on the Range, Aura Lee, Danny Boy, In the Good Old Summer Time: these are melodies and songs that cross generations and cultures and suggest a hand of comfort and connection from past to present. Robin Spielberg knew these songs growing up, and when she began teaching them to her daughter, she started to think of making an album of this music. Spielberg’s instrument is the piano. She’s known as a gifted composer with more than a dozen albums to her credit, sold out concerts at at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and an extensive touring schedule in the United States and abroad.

Spielberg brings her gift for melody to the well known songs on Sea to Shining Sea: A Tapestry of American Music, creating and recreating memories and melodies, presenting them without words and giving space for listeners to add their own stories. There are twenty tracks on the disc, including three Spielberg originals, which stand up in good company with the well known pieces. Though she’s best known for her solo piano work, she heard these songs as ensemble pieces. She’s well supported by Catherine Bent on cello, Kate MacLeod on guitar, fiddle, and vocals, Nancy Rumbel on oboe, Paul Henle on percussion, and her daughter, Valerie, on marimba and bells. It’s a fine recording to play through as it stands, but especially worth note are a lovely reinterpretation of The Water is Wide, the lively I’ve Been Working on the Railroad paired with the quiet Oh Shenandoah, and the original Circle of Life.

Lissa Schneckenburger offers an instrumental journey as well, into the heart of New England fiddling. She grew up in Maine, absorbing the mix of Irish, Scottish, Quebecois, Cape Breton, Appalachian, and other styles that swirl together there. Some of her earliest experiences were playing at contra dances - something she still enjoys -- and for her album Dance she has gathered a fine collection, featuring tunes both lyrical and lively. Her sure touch on the fiddle leads the way through the Huntsman’s Chorus, the Lamplighter's Hornpipe set, Eugenia’s Waltz, and seven more equally engaging tunes, well suited for listening and dancing. She brings along an ensemble of musical friends as well, several of whom you’ve met before along the music road. They include Bethany Waickman on guitar, Keith Murphy on guitar and piano, Eric Merrill on viola, and Corey DiMario on double bass.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: creative practice: early autumn
Music Road: Mother: music celebrating mothers and motherhood: McKeown, Ryan, Spielberg
Music Road: Music of Maine: Lissa Schneckenburger

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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

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Mother: music celebrating mothers and motherhood: McKeown, Ryan, Spielberg

This music is traditional, from Ireland, and original, out of the lives of the three artists who created this record, Susan McKeown, Robin Spielberg, and Cathie Ryan. It is music you probably have not heard before. It’s a powerful and loving celebration of the connections and disconnections and understandings that motherhood and making all life’s transitions invites. It’s also music that allows much as much space for the listener as it does for the artists who created it.

Mother comprises fourteen songs. It works well to let the whole process of the album unfold, from McKeown’s opening remembrance of her mother, who died when the singer was fifteen, to a close with Ryan singing a song for Spielberg, one the pianist wrote wrote to welcome her own daughter into the world. In between there are lively tunes and gracious ones, simple ones and complex, ones presented with sparse accompaniment and those with intricate acoustic support. Spielberg’s exploration without words of a walk with her mother is especially fine, McKeown’s evocation of older times comes through strongly in Ancient Mother, Ryan’s Grandma's Song is a lively dance evoking the joy of both child and grandparent as the younger Cathie Ryan recalls and pays tribute to the fiddle playing grandmother for whom she was named and who gave her her love of music.

In the liner notes, each artist offers a short insight into why she chose or composed each song. These are all well worth reading, and thinking about. Each woman was a at different point in her own experience of motherhood as they worked on this project. Together and separately they’ve each added gifts of understanding to it.

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behind the scenes at the making of the Mother album

Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Irish and American

If you're coming over from the link at Poetry Ireland, you might be especially interested in this Music Road: intersections: words, music, and Robert Burns. It's part of series about the connections between writing songs and writing poetry, as is this. Thank you for stopping by -- stay while and explore.