November 2024
Dear friends,
It’s been a month full of so much music, loss, grief, creativity and connection. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by how life can be so full of beauty and sadness all at once, so inextricably entwined. I am so glad I have a violin to help me connect it all up into something I can share with my community, near and far. Music is such a vital part of our lives, both individually, and collectively - it connects us to our deeper selves, it helps our brains and bodies function, and it helps us create rich societies, where tension and resolution can be made possible, where sadness and beauty can be safely embraced.
Here in Ireland where I live, at this time of year we celebrate an ancient festival called Samhain, which pre-dates halloween, and is held in the midpoint between the autumn and winter equinoxes. It is a time to embrace the darkness, and the things we bury deep down inside ourselves. They say the veil between worlds is thin at this time, which is a rich image we could interpret in so many ways….
I have been really busy with making collaborations with the gamelan ensemble based here in Skibbereen, which I made a piece with last Samhain, and it was so well received that the festival organisers asked if we could develop it further and then perform it in the big finale with the fire dancers! Gamelan refers to the traditional music and instruments of Indonesia, made up of these wonderful bronze gongs and percussion instruments. They are all in a very unusual tuning, so I have to try to match this on the violin. Together with Kevin MacNally (the leader of the ensemble) we have created quite a few collaborative pieces now, including some traditional Irish pieces played on these instruments! Watch out for a release in next month’s newsletter.
The traditional gamelan instruments in place ready for our Samhain festival performance.
TRIPLE SPIRAL LIVE CONCERT
After composing the trio sonata ‘Triple Spiral’ last year, and then making the film and premiere performance in Limerick, we finally brought the piece to life in a full concert program at the Uillinn Dance Season. Yumi Lee, who danced in the film, couldn’t make the performance so I went looking for a new contemporary dancer to fill the role and found the wonderful Chloé Pisco, who was back in her hometown (also my home!) for a while in between doing amazing projects like dancing with humpback whales!
We were given use of the space we would perform in for 2 days, and so gathered Yonit Kosovske (harpsichord), Sarah Groser (viola da gamba) and Vlad Smishkewych (percussion) together with myself and Chloé to work on creating a full concert of contemporary music and dance. The program featured the world premiere of my collaboration with Yonit, entitled ‘Seams in my Socks’ - an audio visual work exploring neurodivergent ‘stimming’, as well as Triple Spiral, and works by Fiona Linane, Brook Green and Will Ayton. Sarah, Chloé and myself opened the concert with an extended improvisation between baroque violin, viola da gamba and dancer. (For a sneak peek at this from rehearsal, head to this link at my PATREON page, where I have shared the whole rehearsal improvisation with the patreon community.)
Chloé, Sarah and myself in rehearsal
Sarah, Yonit, Vlad, myself, Chloé
NOVEMBER BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
As I do a lot of work as a musician and composer in healthcare settings, I’m eagerly awaiting the publication of a new book by Daniel Levitin called ‘I heard there was a secret chord: Music as Medicine’. In the meantime, I ordered ‘The World in Six Songs’ from the local library and found it to be an absolutely fascinating and absorbing read all about how music played a pivotal role in the formation of our brains, the evolution of language, thought and culture. He is both musician and scientist and straddles both worlds extremely well. Highly recommended.
I borrowed ‘On Time’ from Vlad when I was up in Limerick working on some music, and since my fascination with the circadian rhythm and my experiments with avoiding jetlag, this book is a further meditation on our experience of time, why it goes fast or slow, and how we can try to become masters of our time, rather than slaves to it…
I was loaned ‘Monolithic Undertow’ by Harry Sword from Mark, one of the organisers of the Samhain Festival and I’ve just started it. It’s a deep exploration of the drone - in culture, religion, science and music, and goes on a journey from neolithic beginnings to Sufi mystics, Indian raga and ritual amp worship of drone-metal band Sunn 0))). ‘The drone exists outside of us, but also -paradoxically - within us all; an aural expression of a universal hum we can only hope to fleetingly channel…’