All posts by Jay

Musician, aesthete, lover of concord.
links, New Dublin Voices and other choral singing, what I'm up to

Joy be with you all

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Played banjo on RTÉ’s arts programme, The View, last night with James Vincent McMorrow.

I also sang carols with some of my fellow New Dublin Voices on the steps of The Gate theatre in full Victorian garb, complete with top hat. They were celebrating the opening night of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ and it was probably as interesting for us to see the parade of Dublin’s finest heading up the steps as it was for them to hear our singing!

(Quick plug – NDV gigs in John Field Room (11th), St Ann’s (12th), and Blanchardstown (19th).)

Loving the banjo at the moment. I didn’t know that it was actually invented by African slaves in the US by combining different African instruments. (One of the best banjo players in the world is Béla Fleck. I’ve seen him play a couple of times in Dublin. He made a film tracing the banjo’s African roots: trailer looks good…) I’ve been practicing by playing traditional Irish tunes out of a book I found years ago at home called ‘Whistle and Sing!’. It was compiled in 1974 by a man named Eamonn Jordan who lived in Portadown (where I grew up) and it’s an absolute treasure trove of songs, airs, and dance music from Ireland.

Despite not growing up on the side of the fence that celebrated Irish trad music I will be forever indebted to my dad for passing on and fostering a love of our musical heritage. He never learned to play an instrument himself but encouraged me and my sister to play. He brought me along to my first session when we were off on one of our mountain-climbing trips – me barely able to play more than a few chords on my first, high-actioned, acoustic guitar!

Sláinte, dad xo

songs for children

The angels appear to the shepherds

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A friend of mine put this message on Facebook this morning:

Looking for an easy chorus for a small choir of very young angels to sing in a nativity when visiting shepherds…anyone?

As if I hadn’t procrastinated enough this morning, I got the guitar out and came up with this little offering.  Have a listen:  Key’s a bit low for little ones, maybe?  Any other thoughts?

A     F#m  E                       D
Fear not! You must be pretty scared
A       F#m E                                  D          E
We’re not something that you’re dreaming
A        F#m E                         D
We’ve got some amazing news to tell
A        F#m E                   D      E
There’s a king born in a stable

A  D          E         A       F#m Bm    E     D/F# E/G#
Hosanna in excelsis, Hosanna in excelsis
A  D          E         A       F#m Bm    E     D/F# E/G# A   D E A    A D E A
Hosanna in excelsis, Hosanna in excelsis           deo

I know you’ve never seen a halo
But now we’re off to see the baby
Your sheep will be fine, sure what do they know?!
You should really get a move on

Hosanna etc.

I reckon this could be fun to sing.  There’s definitely room for some actions 🙂

composers, forthcoming events, New Dublin Voices and other choral singing

Kirk Franklin

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I’ve been a big fan of Kirk Franklin ever since my sister lived in Philadelphia for a year back in ’98/’99.  His gospel choir compositions are certainly among the absolute best and the choirs and bands he has worked with over the years have been eye-wateringly groovy.

At Edinburgh I conducted one of his pieces, ‘Blessing in the Storm’, as part of a carol service and usually sneak at least one of his pieces into the repertoire of any choir I work with.

Tomorrow he plays his first concert in Ireland and I’m quite the excited bunny!  It’s in the National Show Centre in Swords – a venue I’ve never been to – and tickets are available at this website.  I spoke to the organiser yesterday and he seemed up for doing some deals on tickets.  There are a number of different prices available, with significant discounts for people under 26.

Major recommendation, no matter what you may think of the subject material 🙂

Here’s a taster:

forthcoming events, New Dublin Voices and other choral singing, what I'm up to

Something beginning with B

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Imagine confining yourself to a single letter.

“Platoon” and “Peter Pan” in a month watching only films starting with “P”. Cornflakes and carrot-cake on a day devoted to food beginning with “C”.

For their winter concerts on November 21, 22 & 28, the international award-winning New Dublin Voices have done just that: everything in the concert begins with “B”.

What could have been a constraint in fact proved liberating. NDV burrowed deeply into all that “B” has to offer and came up with a wonderful programme embracing the new – the 2008 surround-sound effect of Sea Swell by Irish composer Enda Bates – and old – madrigals by Bennet in the 16th century – and the familiar – Brahms, Bartók, Britten and Bernstein – and the excitingly obscure – an incredible, unforgettable piece by one Wolfram Buchenberg.

And to round things off, some Beatles, some Barbershop. And The Barber of Seville.

“B” there!

St. Ann’s Church, Dawson St.

Sat Nov 21st @ 8pm

Carlingford Heritage Centre, Louth

Sun Nov 22nd @ 7pm

St. Augustine’s Church, Galway

Sat Nov 28th @ 8pm

Programme includes:

Britten: Hymn to St Cecilia

Brahms: Drei gesange op 42

Buchenberg: Klangfelder

Bates: Sea Swell

Bernstein: Warm-up

Biebl: Ave Maria

€16/€12 (con) at the door or www.ctb.ie 0818 205 205

For further information please contact Lucy Champion at +353 87 983 2553 or lucy6603@yahoo.co.uk

New Dublin Voices was founded by conductor Bernie Sherlock in October 2005. It has since become a leading Irish chamber choir presenting concert programmes that are fresh, innovative, and exciting, ranging widely in style and period from the medieval to the contemporary. The choir takes special pleasure in exploring the often weird and wonderful music of living composers, and has given numerous Irish and world premieres.

Competitive successes include National Choir of the Year at the Navan Choral Festival (2006, 2007, 2009), several awards at the Cork International Choral Festival, including National Choir of the Festival in 2006, and various prizes at Dublin Feis Ceol.

Awards in 2009 include the Grand Prix at the 12th Budapest International Choir Competition, third prize at the International Chamber Choir Competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany; third prize and the special prize for the best interpretation of the set work (Laudatio Domini by Kokkonon) at the 3rd Harald Andersen Chamber Choir Competition in Helsinki, Finland; and the inaugural ESB Feis Ceol Choir of the Year.

newdublinvoices.net

forthcoming events, links, what I'm up to

First gig with Hamlet in ages

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Last Wednesday Hamlet and I played our first gig together in ages. He’s been busy at work (and honing his stand-up comedy skills) and I’ve been teaching full-time in primary schools. It was great to play his songs again and dust off the keyboard. I’m sure it’s been glaring at me, albeit in an inanimate, non-ocular sort of way.

Hamlet doesn’t often do covers so I was very pleased when he said he wanted to do Christy Moore’s wonderful ‘Ride On’.

Here’s the evidence, courtesy of Franziska Blum:

Next gig with Hamlet is on 15 December in the Odessa club.

My dear sister was also using my keyboard this week – playing on the RTÉ Sunday Morning mass with some other Trinity alumni and students. You can watch it here until 29 November.

beautiful minds, funny funny funny, songs for children, what I'm up to

We’re going on a bear hunt

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Yesterday I was teaching classes in Our Lady of Victories Infant School in Ballymun. We had been doing all kinds of stories and music about bears over the past few weeks. Goldilocks, a campfire song called ‘The other day I met a bear’ and – my favourite – Michael Rosen’s wonderful action-story ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’. His sing-song delivery is perfect for young children to copy.

If you are a teacher or a crèche worker and would like a music visit please get in touch 🙂

what I'm up to

Hip-hop est mort…?

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Found this article from The New Yorker about the move in pop music away from the swing groove of hip-hop to a more European style of dance music – a more straight beat.  Jen and I were just last night listening to the Jay-Z track featuring Rihanna mentioned in the article, “Run This Town”.

Sasha Frere-Jones notes that “Rihanna has to tackle a dreary and aimless melody that could be saved only by someone with a surplus of persona. (Mary J. Blige and Nina Simone come to mind.)”  The track certainly is a testament to the quality of Rihanna’s voice and the comparison is interesting.

I love hip-hop but I like this new stuff, too.  I’m thinking of tunes like Teddy Riley’s remix of John Legend’s “It’s Over” and Timbaland’s “The Way I Are”.  That semiquaver-semiquaver-quaver ostinato, that’s what I think of.  Me likey.

beautiful minds, links, what I'm up to

Master of the Unusual

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I’m just back from my Friday ‘Magic of Music‘ school.  It’s the mid-term break next week and all the kids had dressed up for Halloween.  There are twelve classes in the infant school and this morning they all gathered in the assembly hall.  Some of the costumes were fantastic!  A few that caught my eye were Bart Simpson (limbs and head completely painted yellow), a great witch with face painted a ghoulish green and a straggly wig. and a Michael Jackson (black shoes, white socks visible beneath the too-short trousers, black jacket with buttons, hat and the single, spangly glove).  Each class in turn marched around to show off their finery.  This is were I came in – supplying suitably scary improvisations on the twenty year-old Casio keyboard the school had in the store.  I refused the teachers’ offers of a duster as it would have ruined the Halloween effect 😉  Splendid fun!

One of the tunes we use with the kids who do the ‘Magic of Music’ programme is ‘Wipeout’ from Dirty Dancing.  It’s a great one to get them to hear the low, middle and high chords.  Here’s a novel approach from Michel Lauzière (his rollerblade version of music from Carmen is doing the rounds amongst my Facebook friends at the moment):

beautiful minds, news stories

Tommy Tiernan

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Tommy Tiernan did a Hotpress Q&A at Electric Picnic – watch it here on the Hotpress website.  That may be enough to make you wonder what the fuss is about.  Fuss that has surfaced two weeks after the event.  You’ve probably heard something about this story by now but I’d strongly recommend watching the video.  Context is absolutely vital.  It seems quite a frightening place where our words might be taken out of context and used against us, especially if those words form part of a performed characterisation or story.  Fearfully consigning oneself to a life without stories is a fairly joyless prospect.

The interviewer, Olaf Tyaransen, makes a few strange moves during the Q&A including weirdly wrong-footing Tommy by saying he heard Brian Cowen say Ireland was a great ‘land’ not a great ‘brand’…only to contradict himself a moment later.  (I couldn’t find the speech Tommy talks about but, conveniently, Brian Cowen spoke of Ireland as a brand only last week.)

I find the whole thing fascinating.  The entire media furore (it’s hardly a story at all) is based on a biased article by Sunday Tribune writer Ken Sweeney.  It was followed by similarly biased articles by Jim Carroll (on his blog) and David Adams (in The Irish Times).  Each of these pieces suited the contexts they appeared in – Mr Sweeney’s article was cream of the crop Sunday paper material, something to raise the eyebrows over but ultimately entertainment; Mr Carroll’s blog post, although hosted by The Irish Times, is properly his own opinion; Mr Adams’s is in the Opinon section (again of The Irish Times).  The contributions of Alan Shatter TD and the Archbishop of Dublin (his opinion being front page material, of course) bring the thing to a new level with talk of incitement to hatred and racism being bandied about with calls for anyone who isn’t one of Tiernan’s fellow racist idiots to boycott and ostracise him.  Incitement to hatred, in other words.

I hope Hotpress (who published the full transcript today) sell a lot of copies.  More than that I hope that people don’t vilify an intelligent, articulate, joyful, private individual.  I know everyone’s poking fun at the church nowadays – sure it’s all the rage – but there’s definitely something to be said for “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.

Meanwhile the jester gets a kicking from the pitiful boneheads out the back of the castle.