I only arrived in time for the last seven months and five or six days of 1951 but I’m told that it was a momentous year. To be honest, I remember very little of it but that arrival date gives me a special fondness for this month of blossoms and bluebells. I’ve just been out with the camera for a walk among the flowers of May with a grateful glance back down the years and a hopeful look ahead to the promise of summer.
The longer days are drawing me out of a “hibernation” that involved much indoor activity in the recording studio. For the past few months I’ve been working with artistes as diverse as the flowers of Spring, from the great fiddle player and composer Josephine Keegan to New York based band The Screaming Orphans, and, from the local and highly talented Brennan Family to the Bretagne musician Pol Huellou in tandem with the renowned Tunisian poet Tahar Bekri, the latter venture involving Tahar’s work translated into seven different languages. A special word of thanks to Parisa for all her help in the studio in stitching that linguistic cloak of many colours together and here’s wishing safe travels to herself and Kolya on the streets, slopes and salt water around Vancouver!
Before emerging from the studio I completed work on some music for the new Patch Connolly play “Our Ma” which had its world premiere in Armagh earlier this month. The play is set around the Armagh train disaster of 1889 when 88 people, many of them children, lost their lives following an accident that involved an over crowded and under powered train. The play was a great success and connected many people to a very human story. The final song, “The Spirit Lives On” specially written for the show, is one which I hope to include in gigs in the months ahead.
Speaking of which, no shortage of variety there either! See Gigs page for full details but in brief, weekend of 27th to 29th May I’ll be playing solo at three festivals in England, Ireby, Whitby and Chester, Saturday 4th of June in The Marketplace Armagh with The Sands Family, solo at Tredegar Folk Festival in Wales on June 5th and again at Wimbourne Festival on June 11th, then teaming up with the sublime Byrne sisters Claire (uileann pipes) and Ursula (fiddle) for a special County Down Fleadh concert in Warrenpoint on June 18th. Would be great to see you at any of the above, more on News Page later in June and please keep an eye on Gigs which are updated on a regular basis.
In between times I’m looking forward to work on a special BBC Radio Documentary recalling the first Irish LP. Along with producer Owen McFadden I’ll be following in the footsteps of Seamus Ennis and Alan Lomax when they made historic field recordings from Donegal to Cork and we’ll even be meeting up with some of the singers who they recorded back in a year that I mentioned earlier -1951. Ah, that was some year alright!
One last piece of news before I go, German ‘s Deutschlandfunk is broadcasting a Colum Sands special "Liederladen ", catching up on what I’ve been up to since 1951, that goes out May 11th 1.05 early morning German time or 5 past midnight here. Should be available world wide on their website too.
Thanks to you all, enjoy what’s left of May and hopefully see you somewhere along the way soon.
The longer days are drawing me out of a “hibernation” that involved much indoor activity in the recording studio. For the past few months I’ve been working with artistes as diverse as the flowers of Spring, from the great fiddle player and composer Josephine Keegan to New York based band The Screaming Orphans, and, from the local and highly talented Brennan Family to the Bretagne musician Pol Huellou in tandem with the renowned Tunisian poet Tahar Bekri, the latter venture involving Tahar’s work translated into seven different languages. A special word of thanks to Parisa for all her help in the studio in stitching that linguistic cloak of many colours together and here’s wishing safe travels to herself and Kolya on the streets, slopes and salt water around Vancouver!
Before emerging from the studio I completed work on some music for the new Patch Connolly play “Our Ma” which had its world premiere in Armagh earlier this month. The play is set around the Armagh train disaster of 1889 when 88 people, many of them children, lost their lives following an accident that involved an over crowded and under powered train. The play was a great success and connected many people to a very human story. The final song, “The Spirit Lives On” specially written for the show, is one which I hope to include in gigs in the months ahead.
Speaking of which, no shortage of variety there either! See Gigs page for full details but in brief, weekend of 27th to 29th May I’ll be playing solo at three festivals in England, Ireby, Whitby and Chester, Saturday 4th of June in The Marketplace Armagh with The Sands Family, solo at Tredegar Folk Festival in Wales on June 5th and again at Wimbourne Festival on June 11th, then teaming up with the sublime Byrne sisters Claire (uileann pipes) and Ursula (fiddle) for a special County Down Fleadh concert in Warrenpoint on June 18th. Would be great to see you at any of the above, more on News Page later in June and please keep an eye on Gigs which are updated on a regular basis.
In between times I’m looking forward to work on a special BBC Radio Documentary recalling the first Irish LP. Along with producer Owen McFadden I’ll be following in the footsteps of Seamus Ennis and Alan Lomax when they made historic field recordings from Donegal to Cork and we’ll even be meeting up with some of the singers who they recorded back in a year that I mentioned earlier -1951. Ah, that was some year alright!
One last piece of news before I go, German ‘s Deutschlandfunk is broadcasting a Colum Sands special "Liederladen ", catching up on what I’ve been up to since 1951, that goes out May 11th 1.05 early morning German time or 5 past midnight here. Should be available world wide on their website too.
Thanks to you all, enjoy what’s left of May and hopefully see you somewhere along the way soon.
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