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Jubilee concert with Einar Hansander,
Dalsland, Sweden
Howth Church concert
with Peter Hedlund, Leo Rickard & Raphy Doyle
Dalslands Spelmansförbunds
annual festival
Forum de la Plage, Le Treport, France
Playing with Einar Hansander, Pär and
Marianne Furå in Dalsland
Jody Kruskal with Andrew and Margaret
at Whitby Folk Week
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News
2009
Bookings are quickly coming in for 2009 (and 2010 too!), and as well
as local gigs, we’ll be playing in Worcester and near Ludlow in
April. August sees us returning to Sweden to play for the annual
Dalsland music festival amongst other things; on the way we have two
concerts planned in Germany (watch our events page for dates and
details). We’ll be back in Ireland in September where provisional
bookings include the Clé Club, the Cobblestone in Dublin (with John
Kelly), and a couple of gigs in the Seamus Ennis Centre with Leo
Rickard. We’re looking forward to another great year!
2008
2008 proved to be a bumper year for us – over 90 bookings in total
made it our busiest year ever for music.
A new venture in December has been putting together a folk carol
service with Mike Catling, vicar of Whittingham. Based around a
selection of seasonal readings, imaginatively chosen by Mike, and
with the help of several extra voices (thank you, girls!) and a very
supportive congregation who gamely joined in with a selection of
not-so-well-known English carols, we had the perfect start to the
Christmas season.
In November we were delighted to be asked to play at Dalslands
Spelmansförbund’s 75th anniversary concert, and led the
group in playing ‘The Kettledrum’, which we learned from Joe Hutton
but also turns up as an engelska in Southern Sweden! We also
performed a selection of Northumbrian tunes, and had the privilege
of playing two Dalsland tunes on stage with our great friend and
superb musician Einar Hansander.
One of our local highlights this autumn has been the last minute
concert we were invited to give with Andy May and Hinny Pawsey for a
Northumbrian Pipers residential course. Thanks to Susan Craven for
inviting us and organising the evening – it was certainly
appreciated by those who were there (you can read some comments on
our ‘Quotes’ page), and we had a great time too.
For the second year running Francy Devine invited us to Ireland for
some wonderful music in October. A special treat for 2008 was
playing with stunning nyckelharpa player Peter Puma Hedlund and
Uilleann piper Leo Rickard, sharing Swedish, Irish and Northumbrian
repertoire. Many thanks to Francy and co. for arranging gigs for us
in the Cobblestone in Dublin, the Seamus Ennis Centre, and a hospice
benefit concert in Howth, followed by a memorable and impromptu
session in the Angling Club. And who could forget Grace’s 90-plus
birthday house session, where we played with Peter, Leo, John Kelly
and many others until 4.30 am!
In
August we played another concert in St. Mary’s Church, Newton. Yet
again, every inch of the building was packed with an enthusiastic
audience. People were standing in the porch and outside the door,
and we had a group of fascinated children sitting at our feet.
Click here to read a review
No year is complete without at least one booking in Sweden; in July
and August we played for the first time on the island of Tjörn off
the west coast of Sweden, giving a concert in Valla church to an
audience of well over 100 people. Many thanks to Barbro and Toivo
Wiskari for their hospitality and welcome, and for organising the
event;
Dalslands Spelmansförbunds annual festival was a great success. Andy
began the whole occasion by piping the musicians in procession down
to the main hall, and as usual we took our place as honorary members
of Dalslands Spelmansförbund in their performances. We had a
splendid group of musicians at our workshop – they even went on to
play a couple of tunes with us later in our concert slot. We even
began learning dances from Bohuslan under the patient guidance of
Mona Lundberg – not as easy as it looks!
Other highlights included playing in Skållerud church, and spending
a blissful summer afternoon with Einar Hansander, exploring his
repertoire of over 700 tunes. Listening to him play the nyckelharpa
in the garden, eating Marita’s wonderful food, and playing and
talking about dozens of tunes together was a glorious experience for
us.
One of our more unusual bookings in July was to play for the book
launch of Judith O’Reilly’s ‘Wife in the North’ at Barter Books.
Another ‘first’ for us has been storytelling and music sessions in
Alnwick Garden, giving us the opportunity to link Margaret’s local
stories form her childhood with traditional music for some attentive
and appreciative audiences (babies to grandparents included!)
In May we returned to France after several years for a series of
concerts and presentations in schools in Normandy. From a packed-out
café evening to an open air auditorium performance at Le Tréport, we
had a splendid time. Thanks to Jean-Pierre Menuge and Heures
Musicales de la Vallée de la Bresle for their welcome and lovely
French wine and food!
Thursday 26th
June saw the launch concert for our new CD – Borrowed Days, at St.
Mary’s Church, Low Newton. What a great night it was! We were
overwhelmed by the size of the audience with the church being
absolutely full, with an overspill of folks listening from the porch
and outside through open doors! Thank goodness we had a sunny
evening! It was a night to remember made even more special for us
having Andy May joining us on smallpipes, piano and guitar and Hinny
Pawsey on fiddle. Thank you to Andy and Hinny and each and everyone
of the audience.
Click here to read a
review of the concert.
Click Here to watch video
excerpts from the concert
Our new CD ‘Borrowed Days’ is now available (view
CDs and samples page
for details). We’re delighted to have Andy May as a guest
on five tracks, and we had great fun playing around with new (often
spontaneous) arrangements and different combinations of instruments.
There’s also a track with smallpipes and hummelchen (Margaret’s
Renaissance bagpipe, similar to the keyless open-ended chanter of
early Northumbrian smallpipes).
We’ve several bookings taking us further afield this year. In mid
May we go to France for three performances in Normandy, continuing
our musical friendship with Jean-Pierre Menuge, a fantastic recorder
player and harpsichord builder. Then we’re off to Sweden again in
July and August. Through our friendship with Hanna Wiskari we’ll be
playing a concert on the island of Tjörn - thanks to Hanna and her
mum for organising this - and then appearing at the Dalslands
Spelmansförbund summer festival. Dates have just been confirmed for
some exciting gigs in Dublin and Howth in October. It’ll be a real
treat to play with Peter Hedlund (nyckelharpa), Leo Rickard (Uilleann
pipes) and John Kelly (fiddle). Check our
events page
for dates and details.
Jody Kruskal (concertina player from Brooklyn) is staying with us
for a few days at the end of May, when we’ll be working on some new
exciting arrangements for smallpipes, fiddle and concertina, and
recording some ‘transatlantic’ tracks together.
Our performances in Leicestershire in April were very successful.
Both concerts were a platform to introduce people to our music and
to our different pipes; Swedish pipes, hummelchen and smallpipes all
appeared at some point. We shared the Aylestone concert with Julian
Goodacre and his many bagpipes. Our final sets featured smallpipes,
hummelchen and English great pipe all playing together – what a
combination!
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