APRIL 2025 NEWSLETTER
Dear friends,
Spring has come in Ireland and everything is getting lush and green and coming back to life. As an older lady once told me in a hospital music session I was doing “It’s like the world is waking up again.’ I’ve been preparing for an unusual performance I’m doing next month as part of Biodiversity week, improvising a piece of music in the biodiversity park in my town, in the evening, with a gathered crowd, responding the all the different species of life around us. In preparation I’m reading David Rothenberg’s book ‘Nightingales in Berlin’ (see below in this month’s book recommendations) and have begun to really put my attention to the birdsong I can hear around me if I really try to listen deeply, thinking of ways I could respond musically, and if ‘inter-species music performance’ is really possible!
BIRDSONGS
Yesterday morning I woke up from sleeping in a yurt where we’ve been staying on a family camp, and heard the most glorious symphony of birdsong. So many mixed voices, all joining into a wonderful texture. My first thought was to see if I could find a recording device and try to capture it, but then I thought ‘no need!’ and lay back to enjoy it. It really resonated with what I have been reading in conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim’s book ‘Everything is Connected’:
“The education of the ear is perhaps far more important than we can imagine not only for the development of each individual but for the functioning of society….Perhaps the cumulative effect of these skills and abilities could form human beings more apt to listen to and understand several points of view at once, more able to judge their own place in society and in history, and more likely to apprehend the similarities between all people rather than the differences between them.”
VIOLIN STUDIES II FILM AND DOWNLOAD
Last month I did a unique ‘violin studies’ improvisation in my home town for the Clonakilty Arts and Minds Festival, in the very unique setting of the upstairs of a 140 year old drapery shop. As a format, I brought with me 3 of my favourite suit jackets, spoke to the audience about their history and how each garment makes me feel, and then wore the jackets for different sections of the improvisation. It was a very moving event, for myself as well as for members of the audience, who spoke about how the music and clothing helped them to embrace parts of their own personalities, life experiences and so forth! One comment was that men don’t generally tend to reveal these vulnerabilities as much in our society, or embrace how the clothes we wear can help us to project and confront different parts of ourselves. I hope we can continue the conversation, both musically and sartorially!
Above is a film containing an excerpt of the piece, starting with the navy pinstripe, and moving into the Harris tweed blazer I inherited from my father. The full recording is available to my patrons at www.patreon.com/justingrounds (including the Bach F major Largo I played as an encore), or can be downloaded on a pay-what-you-can-afford basis from www.justingrounds.bandcamp.com. All the proceeds from downloads of this piece will be donated to labourbehindthelabel.org, a charity helping workers in the garment industry to get fairer pay and conditions.
(For more on this fascinating subject of clothes and their effect on us, check out Bella Freud’s wonderful podcast ‘Fashion Neurosis’)
