Glorious weather, good books and new ventures

It's been a busy couple of weeks around these parts - my friend Belinda opened her second Good Craic gift shop on very short notice a few weeks ago, and both Tom and I have been helping her until her staffing settles down.   Such a leap going from a sole trader to having several staff to manage.   She's doing brilliantly, the shop is a joy to be in and the location of the new place, at the Silent Valley Reservoir, has been simply lovely to go to during this fabulous spell of weather.   

driving past Slieve Binnian on the way to Silent Valley

Silent Valley is one of three reservoirs in the Mourne Mountains that feed the greater Belfast area and with people staycationing this year lots of people from all over NI and the South of Ireland have been discovering this beautiful part of the world.   

photo from Wikipedia

Its name is said to come from the notion that the birds all disappeared after the explosions to flood the valley.  Before that it was known as Happy Valley because of the singing of the Cornish quarrymen who worked on it.  The greatest achievement was the tunnel that was dug by hand by two teams from both sides of the mountain, guided by candles to keep straight lines and arriving just inches out when the two teams met.   

In the middle of all that excitement my Mum celebrated her 94th birthday out in her garden picking fruit.   We had a gorgeous two days with her - she's still living on her own and managing well.  

And a few members of my Singmarra singing group got together in the park yesterday for the first time since last March.  It was so lovely to hear voices in real life and share a few songs and chat with each other.  We could hear thunder across the hills and there were reports of flooding a few miles away, but our singing must have kept the rain away:) Now it's just about time to figure out if and when we can actually sing together in a group indoors and plan things for the Autumn - the government guidelines are so unclear to read and our regulations are different here than in England and different again from the South, so it's all very confusing.   

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I am so far behind with my round the world book journey and reviews that it'll take me ages to catch up.   However, I just had to write about Days Without End and its sequel A Thousand Moons written by Sebastien Barry.   

"Even when you come out of bloodshed and disaster in the end you have got to learn to live."

These stories are set in the run up to and during the American Civil War - a soldier called Thomas McNulty is the narrator in the first one, and Winona, the Indian girl he rescues is the narrator of the second.   And I can honestly say I've never come across such exquisite writing.   I could almost feel the scratchiness of his uniform and smell the dirt and experience his guilt and disgust at what he was being asked to do.  And Winona walking through nature celebrates such detail of the ordinary.   I normally race through books, following the story, but in Days Without End you have to wait and hear Thomas speaking - his colloquialisms, his pace of speech, his observations - he says once that the sky looked like someone had drawn it with a paint brush and that's what the language is like - a slow, luxurious painting.   For sure, the wider subject matter is not jolly, but rather than a grand depiction of the epic proportions of war, it's about living - the feelings and thoughts of one man, or girl.   

100% a 5* from me. 

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And in other happenings, the squirrels are still coming back to feed from time to time

A new mural has appeared in Rostrevor - lovely work - on the wall of one of our restaurants which  is unfortunately closed again due to a bad Covid outbreak in the area - but that will hopefully pass soon.  

We've had the most exquisite sunsets 

and I've been enjoying playing with paints and plants

 

I've been popping in to keep up to date with how you all are but regular blogging is still not top of my list at the minute - this slower pace is great and I have to say I'm getting a lot more done than before, but there are a few things still needing to get back onto the regular list.  

I hope you are well and staying safe.  

 Well!   That was a year!  Phewww!!   

For me it has been interesting, frustrating, frightening educational  and restful all at the same time.   The pace has slowed, travelling has been much closer to home than in previous years, but the benefits have been great - a garden starting to take shape, time for art and books and movies, and a huge learning curve getting to grips with Zoom.   

Housework, never my superpower, has been toed well down the line and half an hour watching the birds and squirrels and the passing seasons has become much more important and enjoyable.  

A curlew flew by yesterday when we were walking on the beach and the sunrise has been fabulous - normally I don't notice it at this time of year.  

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post.  No promises to  write more regularly in the coming months but I have chosen a word for 2021 - ENERGY - so let's see what that brings.  

So farewell to the 21st year of the 21st century (thanks to Stephen Fry for noting that one).  Going to see the year out with a glass of something sparkling and  Jools Holland's Hootenanny on the tele - always a great party - it'll be interesting to see how they manage it this year. 

And to wish you all well, if you have time check out Singmarra, my community choir some of whom have managed to stay singing with me online through out the year, here singing Blessed Be. 

Lots of love, take care and stay safe and I look forward to reading your posts in the coming year.   

Fil xx

Sunrise on Carlingford Lough 29th December 2020 with a dusting of snow on The Cooley Mountains

A very eventful December - singing with Anuna

I'm determined to get my look back at all the December happenings before January is out, so bear with me.

So after our visit to Dublin the next day my choir had a workshop and a performance scheduled with Anuna.   Another emotional roller coaster.   If I'd had any idea of how amazing the workshop was going to be I would have pushed all my singers to make sure they could be there.

Anuna were the orignal voice of Riverdance - you may remember seeing gorgeous young women with cloaks carrying candles and sounding like angels.   They are quite classical in style but have a very Celtic sound if that's a thing.   8 women and 9 men.
 

I know those of you into music and choirs will find this interesting ....

This group have no conductor, no-one out front, no-one counting them in - all their performance is lead by breath.  And they showed us how they do it ... It was so interesting.  They use the energy of the audience and wait for everyone to settle before they begin.

First Michael McGlynn the founder and director of Anuna asked me to conduct a piece, then do it again without moving my hands ..hmm   No, don't mouth the words!   No, don't use facial expressions!  At that I started to laugh and couldn't think of what else to do - so he proceeded to tell the group to close their eyes. 

Singmarra with Michael standing behind and me in front.  
Note the closed eyes and people trying not to giggle

Without giving them the note again - and remember this is a community choir, not a professional group, and we were now perhaps 10 minutes into the exercise, he then took a breath and they all started in unison and in tune.   Standing in front, I couldn't even hear the breath ... It was so exciting.  Here's a wee snippet from the workshop.

This piece blew us all away - it's called Jerusalem and was composed by Michael McGlynn and is a 7 piece canon in a style that is still sung in the Outer Hebrides .... The girls moved around the monastery as they sang this so the sound wrapped around us all - it was so moving.

So after going through breathing exercises and unison singing we rehearsed Gaudete to perform with them in the Monastery later in the evening.   We were drilled in walking on, bowing and walking off - such fun - I wonder how much of it people will remember when we start back next week lol

 So here's the performance - This is a terrible image but you can see the candles held by the Anuna ladies - we're surrounding them - they didnt trust us with the candles lol - and you can certainly hear us when we come in after the 2nd verse. 

 

Everyone together afterwards ..
we were in the Benedictine Monastery where the Mass is still sung in Gregorian Chant

Some of my Singmarra ladies with Michael

Even making it into the paper the following week

We were all high as kites for a week after and it certainly made a difference to our two Christmas performances and attracted more people to want to join us.

I have no desire to have a professional level choir - my main passion is to get people to use their voices - almost without exception, people who join community choirs tell the leaders that they can't sing or can't sing in tune - given 10 minutes singing in a group with fun songs and no-one pointing fingers everyone sings well in tune and has fun.   But, this experiecne will certainly lift the level of what we do, me as much as the singers - in fact it'll give me the opportunity to join in and sing with them rather than being stuck out in front.  

Mid Week Musings - Dec 14 2017

We've had great fun this week making a video in the house ...

We rearranged the studio, got every available camera and set to work.

The light was perfect from the morning sun until about midday

The music business has changed beyond all recognition in recent years - especially since the advent of social media, and it too is changing all the time.  It works well for younger performers who have grown up with social media but for older wans like ourselves it's much harder.

Recently I asked a friend if she'd got the new CD and she said :No, I'm waiting for it come up on YouTube so I can download it for free!!  Some friend I thought!!   But I knew she was only joking - still, that's the way a lot of people think.   CDs don't sell anymore - in fact our last album was probably the last we'll record in that format.  So video has become very important -for bookers in clubs, for people to listen to songs and possibly cover them - that's an amazing feeling, hearing someone else singing a song you've written - and for people to just use as a radio station.

After an hour or so the sun got too bright for a while,
before disappearing,
leaving a dark shadow in the opposite corner

The big white blob on the right is actually a light from the sitting room laid on its side
filling in the dark bit.

Goodness knows how it'll turn out - it'll take a few goes to get it right, but it's a fun process to be involved in.
Tom has film editing facilities in the studio and has edited several TV shows both for companies here, in America and in Hungary.

I'll let you see the final results when we have them.





As to the rest of our work, I'm really excited to tell you that I've been accepted on to a programme run by the British Lung Foundation, to train as a singing group leader for people with varying degrees of Lung Problems.  I'll be part of a very small team working in Northern Ireland.
Otherwise, things are winding down now for the holidays - apart from the daily instrumental and vocal practice.   Singmarra finished up last night - we head out for our Christmas dinner party on Friday and reconvene early in January with plans for a concert and for taking part in a locally written cantata for Easter.  Touring is also now finished for the year, and next year's tours are well booked up.  And the one to one classes finish today, with all my students ready to be entered for their exams in the Spring.

All in all it's been a productive year, in spite of, or maybe as a result of, spending so much time off the road.

Now I'm ready to get the Christmas tree up and start wrapping presents ... my favourite time of the year.  

Singmarra

Rostrevor Community Choir has a new name ... Singmarra .... what do you think?

I suppose we could guess that it means Songs of the Sea, or Sing about the Sea - but actually it's just a play on words from a beautiful Aboriginal song called Lingmarra that Therese Virtue at the Boîte World Music Cafe in Melbourne taught me when I visited earlier this year.   Her choirs all sing it and it's a sort of non specific native language that means Welcome Everybody  

Rostrevor Community Choir has been going now in various guises for nearly 6 years and for most of that time I've been thinking "we should have a name!, we should have a name!"   So finally we have.

The artwork is an original painting by one of our members, Susan Farrell, who is also chair of the local art group.  I love the lightness of her paintings.  You can see more of her work here

We meet on Wednesday nights in Rostrevor, so if you happen to be in the area on holiday and fancy joining us for a sing for an evening, you'd be more than welcome.  Membership is closed now until after Christmas but we'll open it again for a few weeks to take on the New Year's Resolution singers.