Best music, 2012

Music is one of the strongest ways to connect: to connect across time, across space, with friends, and with strangers. At its best, music is conversation with listening, speaking, and silence all part of the mix. It holds the immediacy of the moment and the wisdom of memory as well as the possibilities of what is yet to be. At a time of year and in a world which now and again may seem rushed, music also holds a place of peace and silence, thought and reflection.

That is what each of these albums offers. You’ll find music with intricately created poetic words and music with no words at all, songs and tunes arising from heartfelt and soul felt connect to land and place, family and history, faith and hope.

In some cases, the links will take you to place where you may hear snippets of the music, and in others links will take you to an article about the album, with links within it which will let you hear the music. I would encourage you to explore these. The albums are not ranked in any order, each of them well worth you attention. Take a listen.

The spirit of the mountains fills Kathy Mattea’s recording Calling Me Home. It is a spirit which encompasses beauty of the natural world, hard life of making a home and a living in the mountains, faith, resilience, history, and unanswered questions. Country Grammy winner Mattea has in recent years been drawn to the songs of her native West Virginia and the surrounding coal country, and to finding her way in to helping these songs speak to a winder audience. She does that here, with notable tracks including Gone, Gonna Rise Again, Black Waters, and Now is the Cool of the Day.

As they have taken their music across the globe through three decades now, Altan have collaborated with artists ranging from Nashville’s country stars to Dublin’s classically trained musicians. For The Poison Glen/Gleann Nimhe though, they decided to bring the focus back home to Donegal, their home country in Ireland's far northwest. Led by fiery fiddling and graceful singing from Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, the members of Altan offer ensemble works by turns lively and thoughtful on music from the tradition, original compositions, and songs that have crossed the waters and back again from Ireland to North America. Look out especially for the New Rigged Ship set, Seolta Gala, and The Lily of the West.

For her album Through Wind and Rain Cathie Ryan brings music that both crosses bridges and creates them, bridges between Ireland and America, between past and present, through loss to resilience and hope. The daughter of parents who emigrated from Ireland to Michigan, Ryan has spent time as an adult living in both countries, and thinking about how their traditions connect and intertwine. For Through Wind and Rain she has chosen and written songs that contain touchstones from her own life, from finding the courage and a spark of humor to cary on after change and loss to encouraging a child to the lasting value of friendship. You will hear a thoughtful storyteller’s heart in Ryan's voice and in the music and arraignments she’s chosen. Look out especially for Mo Nion O, In the Wishing Well, and Fare Thee Well.

Carrie Newcomer is a storyteller with a gorgeous voice and and ear for a fine melody, as well. Her album Kindred Spirits is part retrospective and part new material. To choose the songs, Newcomer looked back over her work with a spiritual focus -- and as ever with Newcomer, spiritual means a broad idea of matters of faith. Even if you are well familiar with her songs, you will find her choices here and the way she has set them in context with each other illuminating. There are several new songs in the mix as well, including the opening track The Speed of Soul, in which Newcomer offers a mosaic of images forming a mediation on time and the spirit.

Rani Arbo and the men of daisy mayhem take matters of spirit into consideration for their recording  Some Bright Morning too. “The wind in the trees is a mighty good teacher/ old mother earth she’s a mighty good teacher,” the four sing in Joe Craven’s updated take on the spiritual Hear Jerusalem Moan with which they open the album. Fiddle, percussion mostly on a collection of items including cookie tins and old suitcases known as Drumship Enterprise, guitars, bass, banjo, and ukulele are the instruments they bring along with their trading of well honed harmony and lead parts on songs including East Virginia, Bridges, and Will Your House Be Blessed?

Cape Breton, a land of mountain, forest, water, and music, is the source from which singer Mary Jane Lamond and fiddle player Wendy MacIsaac draw their musical ideas. On their recording Seinn they offer music which comes from the deep Scottish Gaelic tradition of the island and newly composed material which honors this as well. From lively dance sets to soulful ballads to quiet reflection in song and tune, you’ll hear the heart of Cape Breton in the work of these women, and hear why it reaches across boundaries of language and place as well. Look out especially for The Blue Mountain’s Lullaby and Keeping Up with Calum.

The geography of Scotland itself is shaped by its islands, and it is to them that Fiona J MacKenzie turned to draw inspiration for her album Archipelago. Through gathering contemporary and traditional material and writing songs and melodies herself, MacKenzie visits Scottish islands from Shetland to to St. Kilda to Ailsa Craig in songs that evoke the relationship of land and sea known by island people.

Caroline Herring well knows how to evoke landscape and history with her songs, as well. In her album Camiila it is the American south which is her focus, from stories of the civil rights days in the title track to a visit to Washington DC in Maiden Voyage to the land as frame and companion for hard times in Summer Song.

Alistair Ogilvy tells the stories of his people and his home place with his music, too. He is a native speaker of Scots (think Robert Burns poems if you are wondering what that is) and like Herring -- indeed like all the musicians you see here -- he brings a storyteller’s gift to his work on his debut album, Leaves Sae Green.Irish musician Caitlin Nic Gabhann tells her stories through the steps of her feet in the dance and through her concertina. On her album Caitlin she offers sets from the tradition as well as tunes she has made herself. A touch both clear and melodic leads the way through reels including the Flying Column set and the Leeside Sessions set, the waltz Sunday’s Well and the air Cill Dheaglain.

Sarah McQuaid draws on her time spent growing up in the United States, living in Ireland, and her current home base in England to find sources for her songs on The Plum Tree and the Rose. It’s a varied collection, ranging from songs of love and change to a tale inspired by a moment of reflection in Derby Cathedral to another sparked by a visit to Hardwick Hall to a round on gratitude arising from recalling the American holiday of Thanksgiving while living elsewhere.

Nuala Kennedy brings a varied geography to her music as well. The flute player and singer is native to Louth, that land of legend in the east of Ireland. She’s lived long in Edinburgh and recently spent time in New York and in the north of Spain. All of these come into play in the songs as tunes and arrangements she creates on Noble Stranger. She offers intriguing takes on traditional songs as well. Look out for her versions of My Bonnie Labouring Boy and The Banks of the Roses.

Every year in October, the people of Cape Breton Island invite the world home to share their music and to explore the ties that twine that music with the traditions which it neighbors and those from across the oceans from which it springs. The brothers and sisters who make up The Barra MacNeils created ten days of musical collaboration that resulted in ten tracks on The Celtic Colours Sessions.This finds the Barras in their first French language song as they join up with Acadian singer Ron Bourgeois, celebrating the origins of Cape Breton and their family name as they partner with traditional singer Cathy-Ann MacPhee who grew up on the isle of Barra in Scotland’s Western Isles, tracing an Americana and banjo based connections with fellow Nova Scotian Old Man Luedecke, and making fine harmonies with members of another well known family band as they sing with Shay, Michael, Mary, and Frances Black from Ireland.

Take your time to explore this music, let the words and the melodies move you as they will, and listen from the resonances and connections and stories which run through the work of these diverse artists.. Explore other work of these musicians, as well, perhaps here along the Music Road for starters. There’s more to be learned and enjoyed from each of those whose names you see here.

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listening to Christmas: Shannon Heaton, Cathie Ryan, Mary Black, Hanneke Cassel

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The Celts: History, Life, and Culture

When Celtic lands are discussed, Wales often receives rather less attention than its Celtic companions Ireland and Scotland.  The two volumes of The Celts: History, Life, and Culture take steps to remedy that, as they are a project of the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies at the University of Wales, in collaboration with the publisher, ABC CLIO.  That’s not to say Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, and places where Celtic culture is dispersed across the world are left out: indeed not, there are many articles on all sorts of Celtic subjects, written by an international cadre of scholars.

The writing is of quite high level, too, for the most part holding interest whether one’s background is general or scholarly. Adding to interest are the sometimes unexpected perspectives. While there is  a good bit of material to do with, for example, Ireland, Irish emigration is treated and cross referenced under entries to with Irish language. Another useful aspect is that heroes of legend and myth, King Arthur for instance, are often traced through appearances and connections in all the differing Celtic cultures.

The articles vary in length  from a few hundred words to several thousand, and are arranged alphabetically. There’s also quite an interesting bibliography divided by subject matter.  A list of contributing scholars is included, but a note of their affiliations or backgrounds would have added to the value of the work, as would brief pronunciation guides to the languages involved. I say that being fairly familiar with Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and French, but finding these not of much help with understanding how  Welsh or Breton is spoken, and thinking others might find themselves in a similar situation. The pages used for the table of contents, not really necessary in a alphabetically arranged work, could perhaps have been used for these things.

That said. these are useful, interesting, and readable volumes with information that will inspire further exploration and give guidance as to direction to take with that. These two volumes of The Celts: History, Life, and Culture would be a welcome addition to any reference collection.





you may also wish to see
Reading Ireland: Companion to Irish Traditional Music
music from Wales: Fernhill

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Songs & landscapes: Sarah McQuaid

Sarah McQuaid brings a confluence of landscapes to creating her music: she was born in Spain, grew up in Chicago, lived for some years in Ireland, and is now based in Cornwall in the southwest of England. She spends about six months of each year traveling the world with her music. McQuaid’s most recent recording, The Plum Tree And The Rose, finds her exploring ideas of changes, through stories which arise from history and from her own travels.

McQuaid is also a parent. The song she sings in this video comes from that place, as well.







Recently, I had the chance to write about The Plum Tree And The Rose at some length for A Traveler's Library and Perceptive Travel. In these two (different) stories you will find out about how a Renaissance hall and a cathedral inspired McQuaid to write two of the songs on the album. You’ll also learn about a really fine song called In Gratitude I Sing, which was inspired by McQuaid's remembering the American holiday while far from North American shores.

McQuaid will be playing a number of concerts and also giving workshops on DADGAD guitar in the United States during September and October. Here is McQuaid's tour schedule.


you may also wish to see
from Scotland: The Boy and the Bunnet
Music for a midsummer's day
late summer: two for the road

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Traditional & contemporary: Nuala Kennedy

Nuala Kennedy hails from County Louth, in Ireland, an area that is known as a land of myth and legend. She moved to Edinburgh for art college, and with her whistles and flute in hand, became immersed in that city’s vibrant music community. Though still based in Scotland, Kennedy has recently spent time in New York, as well. Each of these experiences weave through the songs and tunes on her album Noble Stranger.

The collection begins with a song of Kennedy’s own devising called Gabriel Sings. The lyrics and ideas are a vivd mix of image that could be at home in pop and traditional styles, while the arrangement was in part inspired by a vintage but not so traditional instrument: Kennedy was given a small Casio keyboard by by Norman Blake of the Glasgow based band Teenage Fan Club, a group with who she has worked in the past. “ I was immediately drawn to the simplicity and transportability of the instrument,” Kennedy says.

Her own primary instruments, flutes and whistles, are transportable themselves, and Kennedy takes their sound through music of Ireland and Scotland as well as to Spain and adds in the energy of time she’s spent in New York. Lord Duneagle is a songs from the Scottish tradition, a tale of a man leaving his love in order to go off across the seas, on his return finding things not as he had anticipated. This story line shows up in other Celtic traditions, as well, and it is often sung as a slow ballad. Kennedy creates a fast paced, percussive treatment, a take which adds urgency to the story and serves it well. She has always been a fine singer, with a light, expressive soprano which is framed well by the textures of guitar, mandolin, drums, flutes and other instruments here. Her work on this and other songs on the recording show that she is really coming into her own with her singing as well.

Flute takes the lead for sets that, in different ways, reference area in the north of Spain called Asturias. It is a Celtic location too, with its own accent for music. The first Asturias set comprises two tunes which their origins in sixteenth century Scotland, while Asturias Part Two is made up of pipe tines from Llena in central Asturias.

Through all the dozen tracks, Kennedy and her tight knit band show a gift for weaving tradition and present day in melody, lyric, arrangement, and choice of material. “Spending time in America has given me a renewed appreciation of my own traditional musical heritage, and this renewed appreciation is reflected in the choices of some of the older material on the album, “ Kennedy says. “Classic traditional songs such as My Bonny Labouring Boy and the bonus track Matt Hyland are songs I have known for a long time and they seemed to re-emerge as a natural part of this record.” These traditional songs are, indeed a natural part of Nuala Kennedy’s musical journey on Noble Stranger, a journey which weaves together sounds and ideas of past and present -- a journey well worth the taking.

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Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
Music road trip New York City: Irish Musicians
music and journey

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From Scotland: Archipelago from Fiona J MacKenzie

Scotland is known for its rugged mountains and wooded glens. It is a country of the waters, as well, though, with miles of coastline and the landscapes on ninety nine inhabited islands as well as many more islands where people no longer live. It is the life and music of Scotland's islands that Fiona J. MacKenzie has chosen as the focus of her recording Archipelago.

MacKenzie opens the collection with three songs that contain threads of work, legend, and life which run through the music she has chosen. There is Cumha Iain Ghairbh from the island of Raasay, a lament written by the sister of a man who drowned at sea, Iorram Suirghe, a song of Saint Kilda that is a rowing song whose melody which echoes those of waulking songs; and The Great Selkie of Suleskerrie, a song of sea legend from Orkney. Through them, and indeed, through all the songs Mackenzie offers her, you hear the sea, the life of the people who are shaped by living on the waters, and the stories they tell.

MacKenzie’s graceful soprano proves a natural voice to tell these stories, and to honor the differences and connections among the communities from which they come. MacKenzie, a renown and awarded Gaelic singer and educator, sings in Scottish Gaelic, Scots, English, and Norn, as the stories she tells require, and through each language those stories remain vivid. There are songs long handed down from tradition, and several new compositions as well. Outstanding among the latter is Journey Back to Arran, a gathering of a traditional melody, words from MacKenzie, and a song written by musician Gill Bowman with the students in grade four through seven at Pirnmill Primary School. Renown fiddler Gillian Frame, a native of Arran whose music you’ve met here before along the music road, adds tasteful backing to MacKenzie’s voice.

The contributions of other guests including Barbara Dickson, Alex Hodgson, and Mairi Chaimbeul add to the mix, as does the liner notes booklet with artist Jenny Hallahan’s cover painting as well as Mackenzie's’ notes on the songs, lyrics, and photos from the islands. From Shetland in the far north to Ailsa Craig in the south, through just eleven songs, MacKenzie offers thoughtful interpretation and intriguing insights on life and legend in Scotland’s islands.


you may also wish to see
from Scotland: Brave the movie, Julie Fowlis, and music
from Scotland: Joy Dunlop & Twelfth Day
history into song: capercaillie: glenfinnan
and
on Twitter, MacKenzie will teach you bits of Scottish Gaelic in just a few words as @GaelicSinger

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Thinking about songs: Eddi Reader and Moon River

Eddi Reader is a Scot, a native of Glasgow. Though she first rose to wide acclaim as the singer with the pop group Fairground Attraction while living in London, she eventually decided the land north of Hadrian’s Wall was calling her home.

There, Reader has found success both with writing her own music and in interpreting the songs of contemporary writers as well as those of Robert Burns. I’ve had the good fortune to interview her twice.

One of the points she made during those conversations was that she’s always thought of herself as a folk singer: she’s never lost that approach to seeking out and creating music that connects and really has something to say, holding this to be equally true through her days in London and her presenting of the songs of Robert Burns with orchestras.

That is one reason I was intrigued to come across this video of Eddi Reader singing Moon River. Sounds like it could be part of the folk tradition to me, just as at home in that place as it is on Broadway and in film.

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eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis

Julie Fowlis:Uam

Eddi Reader sings more of the songs of Robert Burns

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Two from Scotland: Highland Journey and Barbara Dickson

Music rises from and frames the land throughout the Highlands of Scotland.


Musical expressions of love for the land, memories, and connections found across it hold a strong place in the traditional music of the Highlands. That’s what Jack Evans, Marc Duff, and Pete Clark explore in their recording Highland Journey: Music in the Glen. Both meditative and lively pieces find place in their choices for this instrumental album. In addition to their guitars, fiddles, whistles, and other instruments you may hear sounds of the waters, birdsong, and other sounds of nature from the Highlands woven into the music. Glen Lyon, The Forests Where the Deer Resort, and a set comprising The Lass of Glenshee, Lochnagar, and Cairngorm are but three of the baker’s dozen of fine tracks on Highland Journey: Music in the Glen. All in all it is a lovely album which you will want to listen to again and again as you recall or imagine or look out over the Highlands.



Barbara Dickson began her career in her native Scotland as a folk singer, touring folk clubs and among other things recording with with well known folk musician Archie Fisher. Though she hadn’t exactly planned on it, connections made through her touring in England led to opportunities in music theater. As it happened, she excelled on the London stage, and in television acting as well. Barbara never lost her love folk music or for Scotland, however, and in recent years her recordings have tended back toward that vein. For her recording Words Unspoken she chose to work with the renown Scottish label Greentrax.

Words Unspoken opens with The Magical West, which Dickson co-wrote with the album’s producer, Troy Donockley. It is song which manages to be both intricate and straightforward at the same time. It proves a fitting beginning to an album which winds through a varied gathering of mainly tradtional songs including Jamie Raeburn, The Trees They Do Grow High, Presonent Hodie, and Ca’ the Yowes. The collection draws to its close with what may be called a modern day folk song, Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Dickson brings her own distinctive voice and thoughtful interpretation to each, and the arrangements support her well. This too is an album which well repays more than one listen, and will likely bring back and add to memories of Scotland.


Barbara Dickson sings the traditional piece Skye Boat Song


you may also wish to see
eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis
Julie Fowlis:Uam
Eddi Reader sings more of the songs of Robert Burns

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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.

Music and time

Listening to and playing music, practicing and learning it, are ways to find quiet, as quiet often makes a space to find music. Both arise, I think, from the quality of focus, on the one hand, and being relaxed, on the other.

Some while back, I read that a person in medieval times received as much information in a year as a person now does in the course of one day’s time. As information, connectivity, and electronic devices -- and people’s expectations concerning all that -- continue to grow, we might be up to receiving several years’ worth of information in a day by now.

As this season unfolds, take time to step away from that flow of information and into the stream of listening to playing, and sharing music, relaxing into a landscape or a candle flame, and hearing the quiet.


music to go along with these ideas

Scotland's Highlands in music: Duncan Chisholm

Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen


the photograph is of sunset over the Mourne Mountains in County Down, Northern Ireland. it is copyrighted. thank you for respecting that.

you may also wish to see

music, silence, and spiritual journey


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

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From Scotland: Brave the movie, Julie Fowlis, and music

Brave, the film, is set in the Highlands of Scotland in ancient times. It is an animated fantasy which tells the tale of Merida, a feisty high born girl who, when it comes time for her to marry and choose a husband from a select group of suitors, wants to maintain her independence and choose her own fate. Her choices about that unleash, as she says, “a tiny wee curse, or two...” and the action unfolds. There’s drama, humor, voice actors with the right sound, visual evocation of the Highlands through image -- and through music.


Though she had not been expecting it, Julie Fowlis found that she would be involved
with Brave -- or at least her music would. Fowlis is an internationally touring and award winning Gaelic singer, it’s true, but when she answered the telephone at home in Scotland she wasn’t thinking the call would be from Disney/Pixar Studios in California. As it happened, each time the production team came to Scotland to do research, they bought loads of music recordings and took them back to California to listen. Fowlis’ music, they told her, just kept coming to the top of the stack.





It is Fowlis you hear singing in this trailer for Brave







If you’ve been walking here along the Music Road awhile, you may recall first meeting Fowlis some years back at the time of her first solo album, Mar A Tha Mo Chridhe, and even before that, from her time with the band Dochas. If you’re new to her music and Brave has got you intrigued, you might like to explore

what she has to say about her recent album Uam

how she sounds on a live album: Julie Fowlis Live at Perthsire Amber

and read about her most recent project, Heisgeir, which has to do with film in a different way than the film Brave.

If the movie Brave has you intrigued with the music and landscape of Scotland, there’s quite a bit about all that in our archive here at Music Road, and there’s more to come as well.

you may also wish to see

more suggestions for listening to the music of Scotland
the soundtrack album for Brave, on which Fowlis has two songs Brave
The Art of Brave a book about the animation of the film


photograph of Julie Fowlis at Celtic Connections, above, was made with permission and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

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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.

from Scotland: Alistair Ogilvy: Leaves Sae Green

Alistair Ogilvy knows how to seek out a good story, and how to tell one well through word and music, too. Missing a loved one, unrequited love, travels and journeys in search of love, alongside darker themes ranging from deceit to murder turn up in the music he chooses for his debut album Leaves Sae Green.

That title comes from a phrase in a traditional song, of which there are a good few among the eleven tracks. These are songs from the well of Scottish tradition -- Ogilvy was born in Strathblane near the Campsie Hills and is based now in Glasgow. If you’re familiar with Irish or North American folk tradition, though, you’ll meet characters and hear turns of phrase in these songs which have traveled back and forth across waters and communities.


Notable tracks

Bonnie Ship the Diamond is a lively tale of Greenland whale fishers and their homecomings, while Wars o’ Germanie treats of partings and leaving loved ones behind

So does, in a different way, Girl from the North Country. Ogilvy does his own bit of helping song to travel, with this on, as it was written by Bob Dylan. In Ogilvy’s hands it stands naturally among songs from the tradition.

As tradition goes, it also seems natural to include a Robert Burns piece, and Ogilvy has a good time combing two of them, in Crowdie/Wantonness.

Earl Richard is a complex story of murder, with Ogilvy well handling the thread of the story.

The Kirkwall Light is is a quiet piece born of the winter time in that northern place in Orkney, and is a song which Ogilvy wrote himself.

Leaves Sae Green proves a strong debut from a gifted musician and story teller. If the buzz around the film Disney/Pixar film Brave has you thinking about Scotland, Leaves Sae Green could prove a fine entry point to Scotland’s music.


Here, Ogilvy sings a version of Loch Lomond that might be a bit different than the ones you've often heard




You may also wish to see
from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy
tuning up for Burns Night: Jim Malcolm
from Scotland: The Boy and the Bunnet

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From Scotland: Joy Dunlop & Twelfth Day

Fiere is a word in Scots which means friend or companion.

Fiere is also the title of a recording Scottish Gaelic singer Joy Dunlop and the two women who comprise the duo Twelfth Day, Catriona Price on fiddle and voice and Esther Swift on harp and voice, have made together.

A song from the tradition that arose from and honors friendship sparked the idea of the album for the three women. Faca sibh Ragnaill no Ailein? / Have you seen Ronald or Allan? is a waulking song, a song women would sing together to keep the rhythm of the work (and the conversation) going as they worked cloth. There’s a call and response aspect to waulking songs, and with this one, the singer starts out asking about others before getting around to the subject of the one she loves. In this version, it’s easy to hear the sound of centuries of connections and conversations among friends in the words and in the melody.

It makes an engaging opening track for a collection in which Dunlop and Twelfth Day take the languages of Scotland -- Scottish Gaelic, Scots, English, Shetland -- in directions which both honor tradition and extend it. The lyrics for the rest of the ten tracks are words from a range of Scottish women poets, set to melodies which the musicians have composed. There are stories of love and loss, discovery and friendship, of the moments of life which reach across time.



listen to the music from Fiere


Differing though shared backgrounds in traditional music and a willingness for exploring where tradition can go brought Dunlop and Twelfth Day together. Take the journey through this music with them. You’ll be well rewarded. Standout tracks include The Last Licht, Fiere, Coimhead Iad, and The Light Gatherer.

you may also wish to see
Julie Fowlis: Live at Perthsire Amber
Music for St Andrew's Day: music of Scotland
Mary Ann Kennedy & Na Seoid

-->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.

Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas: Valley of the Moon Reel

In there work, fiddle player Alasdair Fraser and cellist Natalie Haas frequently play music from the Scottish tradition, reviving the centuries past tradition of fiddle and cello pairings. They also on occasion play music from Cape Breton, Spain, and other parts of the Celtic diaspora.

Then there are the times when they play music that one or another of them has composed. That’s what is going on here, as they offer Fraser's Valley of the Moon Reel.





The Valley of the Moon in the title gives the nod to Fraser’s fiddle camp of the same name, In California. Respected for his encouraging and inspiring style of teaching as well as his playing, Fraser has camps in Spain and Scotland as well, at which Haas also teaches.

you may also wish to see

Highlander's Farewell: Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas
Scottish music a different way: The Unusual Suspects
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen

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History into song: Capercaillie: Glenfinnan

Putting history into song is a long tradition. It makes sense that they should intertwine: both hold the capability for vivid storytelling, and of connecting people across time, space, and country.

The Scotland based band Capercaillie is known for connecting the music of Scotland with that of other countries and continents. For the film Glenfinnan, though, they focused on the stories surrounding a major event in the history of Scotland: the raising of the standard by Highlanders who would follow Charles Edward Stuart -- Bonnie Prince Charlie -- into battle in attempt to restore the house of Stuart to the monarchy. The first raising of the standard took place at Glenfinnan, in 1745. The program, from which this video was taken, was shot there.



It’s also instructive in the making of visual statements with music. Sure, it took some production values to get the fire and the flames and the night lighting and the stage on the water, but compared to many music videos common today, this one is quite straightforward, and lets the visual aspect enhance the music rather than compete with it. It was made in 1995, and still holds impact.



I was fortunate to see the whole film during a Gaelic Film Festival which was part of Celtic Connections several years back, and the whole thing is equally powerful. As far as I can tell, the film isn’t available. The music Capercaillie made for it is, though, and it is certainly powerful enough for you to create your own images while listening.
Glenfinnan: Songs of the 45

you may also wish to see
Capercaillie: Roses & Tears
Scott-Land at Celtic Connections
Celtic Connections 2012: the music begins

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Music, History, and Heisgeir

Heisgeir is a group of small islands off the west coast of North Uist. North Uist is itself part of the Outer Hebrides, which lie about forty miles off the northwest coast of Scotland, so Heisgeir, also known as the Monach Isles, is a fairly remote place. Gales which sweep across the North Atlantic often strike Scotland first at Heisgeir.

The islands are uninhabited now, but archaeological evidence suggests that people lived there many centuries ago. Not just many centuries ago, either: up until the 1940s, fishermen and their families lived on the islands. which had the advantage of having a natural harbour into which they could pull their boats to avoid the brunt of the storms. For some time there were a hundred or so people living on the islands, but by the time the 1940s came, there were but two families left.

follow this link to see photographs of Heisgeir

Some of their houses and buildings still stand, and on occasion fisher people stop over there while working the area. A lighthouse on the outermost island of Sillay, built in the 1860s, was decommissioned in 1942, but has been shining again since 2008. It is run these days by automation: no light house keeper lives in the isle now.

Growing up on North Uist, musician Julie Fowlis knew about Heisgeir: some in her family had fished the waters there before she was born. As she was working on a project of songs, she thought to gather video footage and take photographs of the islands as they are today. She did that, but it turned into something more. Listening to the stories of people who had lived on the island or knew people who did, fisher people who’d traveled there, tales that had been passed down, she knew she had to let these voices speak, along with the landscape, along with the images, along with the music from Fowlis and her bandmates, along with the sea.

Fowlis has brought all these together in Heisgeir, a program that blends live music with film, film that includes the voices and the stories as well as images of the islands. It’s a beautifully told tale, one that invites reflection about history and change and what stories we remember and pass along, as well as about the nature of these remote islands themselves.















It could get you considering technology, too. Fowlis used contemporary technology to help in the passing along of these stories, but yet it is the stories themselves that last.

If the technology wasn’t there, would we know of them? If the lasting stories weren’t there, if the inspiration of the artist wasn’t there, would the technology matter? Heisgeir is one of the finest examples I’ve seen of technology so in service of older ways and artistic vision that you forget how the story is transmitted, you forget that the technology is there. It becomes a transparent tool.

At this writing there are two presentations of Heisgeir planned this summer in Scotland. You may keep up with those and other presentations in the future at Julie Fowlis’s web site. If you can go to see it, do so. If you are a presenter with any interest in heritage, your audiences will be well served by booking this program. If neither of those work for you, still, I invite you to give a few moments thought as to how we pass along our stories in ways that last, and what life may have been like on Heisgeir across the years.


I was fortunate to see the film and performance of Heisgeir at Celtic Connections in Glasgow, which is where these photographs were made. They were made with permission of the festival and the artists. They are copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting that.

You may also wish to see
Music Road: Julie Fowlis: Live at Perthsire Amber
Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
a short film about julie fowlis

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Concerts, Conversations, and Travel: Ireland

As Saint Patrick’s Day approaches, here is a look back at several favourite conversations with Irish musicians, stories about travel in Ireland, and reports of concerts of Irish music. Most are from here along the Music Road, along with several from other places. Follow the links to enjoy good reading and great music -- with, of course, more of both to come.


conversations with Irish artists
Cathie Ryan talks about teaching tradition
Mary Black shares her reflections on her career and song choices
Michael Black talks about music, family, and friends
Heidi Talbot talks about learning music growing up in Kildare, and about creating her latest album, sharing songs and stories [at Wandering Educators]




travel in Ireland, north and south. photo essays too
Ceol Chairlinn: sharing music in winter a quieter side of the Irish year
Irish music, Irish landscape and why not all Irish songs are drinking songs

an encounter with the not so distant past in Newry: Meeting the Past in Northern Ireland [at Perceptive Travel]
history, memory, museums, and the Reminiscence Project in Northern Ireland:
Holding Memory in Your Hands [at Perceptive Travel]
reflections on Belfast Unrest and Travel in Northern Ireland [at Perceptive Travel]
Traditional Irish musicians honored at Gradam Ceoil [at Irish Fireside]

two favourite stories about concerts

at Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Another Fine Winter's Night with Matt and Shannon Heaton
from City Halls in Glasgow, Scotland T with the Maggies and the music of Donegal

photograph of a Sunday afternoon session in Louth, Ireland, is by Kerry Dexter and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting that.

Ahead, in honor of Saint Patrick I’ll gather up for you stories of my favorite recordings of Irish music -- this is now available at Music Road: learning about Irish music: a bouquet of albums for spring. Who are your favourite Irish musicians, and what are your favourite places in Ireland? If you like, let us know in the comments.

If you enjoy what you’ve been reading here, a way to support more of it: b>

Music from Wales: Fernhill

1 March is Saint David's Day. Saint David is the patron saint of the country of Wales.


With the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, you might have heard more about the country of Wales than you usually do. The Duke’s father is titled the Prince of Wales, for one thing. The Duke is serving with a rescue unit of the Royal Air Force based in Anglesey, for another, and the couple have chosen to live near there. There is more to Wales than its recent royal highlighting, of course.

There's a beautiful and varied landscape and sea coast, a long history, a Celtic language all its own, a vibrant culture. a welcoming people, and there’s music. One of the most interesting and best ways to meet the music of Wales is through the work of the band Fernhill.


Fernhill is Ceri Rhys Matthews on flute and guitar, Julie Murphy, whose main instrument is her voice, Tomos Williams on trumpet, and Christine Cooper on fiddle and voice. They've a new album out, the first one with this current line up, which is called Canu Rhydd. This means, in Welsh, free poetry. At a recent concert at Celtic Connections in Glasgow, I had the chance to hear Rhys Matthews explain just what this means in the history of the poetry of Wales, how a flowering of creativity took place in medieval times when restrictions on poetic forms were lifted -- and how Fernhill has used texts from that time in their music.

The musicians offered songs in both English and Welsh, as well as tunes with horn and fiddle, flute and guitar. There was a piece in which Matthews sang in Welsh and Cooper did a spoken word section in English, and there was music to this as well, all well thought out and well presented. Beauty in simplicity, complex ideas shared through deep focus, and, as they say of themselves, music from the edge of an island. Well worth your time to seek out, in live performance and through recordings.


You may find out more about the band and about Canu Rhydd at Fernhill’s web site

photographs were made at Celtic Connections with the permission of the festival and the artists, and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see

more recordings by Fernhill
the BBC’s site about the music of Wales
Music Road: Celtic Connections 2012: the music continues

-->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.

Northern Ireland: Sound Neighbours

The six counties which make up the north of Ireland, the area of the island which is part of the United Kingdom, hold beauty and welcome and legend, along with troubled political history which seems to come in waves. It is also the home place of many gifted musicians.

Sound Neighbours: Contemporary Music in Northern Ireland is a project the Smithsonian Folkways label put together several years back when Northern Ireland was featured as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, it includes songs which range over the landscape and ideas of the six counties.

Notable among the twenty tracks are piper Jarlath Henderson's The Old Bush Set, Bap Kennedy’s The Shankill and The Falls, Briege Murphy’s The Verdant Braes of Screen -- actually all the tracks are well worth your listening, from The Divine Comedy’s edgy political commentary in Sunrise to Niall and Cillian Vallely’s melodious The Singing Stream, to Tommy Sands personal and universal story of the north in There Were Roses. Tommy’s brother Colum Sands, himself an accomplished musician, wrote the liner notes which give a bit of context to each song and each artist, and contributes his own song Donegall Road.

you may also wish to see

music and hope: Derry
Ireland, north and south
Radio Ballads: Northern Ireland

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
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.

Words, music, and national poetry month

Music and poetry have much in common -- and many differences as well. As the United States is marking national poetry month in April, I invite you to reflect and consider what those connections and differences might be, as you also consider this statue of Robert Burns, taken on a foggy morning in Glasgow -- as he might be contemplating twenty first century Glasgow city center.

music to go along with these ideas
Music Road: Eddi Reader, Emily Smith, Robert Burns
Music Road: intersections: words, music, and Robert Burns


you may also wish to see
Songs Based on Literature

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

-->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.

photographing music: Scotland

Eddi Reader at the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall, a different view of Buchanan street, and piper in George Square on Burns night


music to go along
Music Road: Music for St Andrew's Day: music of Scotland

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Road Trip Music: Ohio

Music Road: creative practice: the spaces between

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

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
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.

Radio Ballads: The Ballad of the Big Ships

Ballad of the Big Ships

The nature of work, of how work forms community and is formed by it, and what happens when both of these part of life face change: that's the substance of the conversations which led to the songs on Ballad of the Big Ships. The voices of the people who've lived those circumstances in the ship building industries along the Clyde and the Tyne form the substance of this recording, their voices, and the songs those voices inspired. It is a powerful project, much to think on whatever your line of work. Songwriters include Jez Lowe, Karine Polwart, and John Tams. This is part of the BBC2 radio Ballads series.

You may also wish to see
Radio Ballads: Northern Ireland
Ireland's music: Cara Dillon: Lass of Glenshee
Scotland's Music: A Tapestry of Scotland's Music Abroad