Monday, November 29, 2010

Singing in the West


We’ve taken the tour out west. October 30 was the date of the launch at Symphony Space. The Irish Arts Center produced the event in association with The New York Public Library and NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House, and with Fountain House, NAMI Metro-NYC, Bring Change 2 Mind and New York’s MDSG (Mood Disorders Support Group).

For the debut of all the songs from the album, most of the musicians who performed on it were able to play their parts live. Halfway through the evening Paul Holdengräber moderated a discussion with myself and author and psychiatrist Kay Jamison, delving into some of the works featured on the album and exploring the connection between madness and creativity. The album is one which has songs in many styles, moods, and a number of vocally challenging pieces. I was grateful to have all the wonderful guests present and that everything ran according to plan, making it a magical evening.

Since then I’ve been touring the Ryan McGiver, Eamon O’Leary and Jason Sypher on the East Coast which included a performance as part of the Johns Hopkins Art & Psychiatry Series introduced by Dr. Raymond DePaolo, with remarks from Kay Jamison. Kay is Professor of Psychiatry there. That event took place in an old medical lecture where the staff still hold their Grand Rounds.

Two nights ago we were in Eugene Oregon and so I invited David Oaks of Mind Freedon International to talk about his organization at the concert. What he had to say was enlightening and thought provoking and you can learn more at mindfreedom.org

Last night’s event at The Secret Society Ballroom featured Will Hall and Myriam of Portland Hearing Voices (http://www.portlandhearingvoices.net/). Their presentation featured their own stories and the work of the Hearing Voices Network, which is fascinating to me. When I last met with them in Portland in September, Will told me how much he had enjoyed Daniel B. Smith’s book Muses, Madmen and Prophets: which I have since been reading.

There is not a day that I don’t wake up grateful that I’m able to earn my living from music, but on this tour I have a particular sense of gratitude connected with how this album is being received. Having planned the work for so many years there's a tremendous sense of satisfaction in releasing it through these meaningful events.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Getting ready for release

I thought this would be a quiet week but no. The Kickstarter fund reached $8,595 through the backing of 142 generous people. The CD is at the manufacturing plant. The tour is about to begin. There is much work to be done and new things are coming up needing to be done every day in readiness for the album release.

Why did I choose to give up caffeine this week? Probably because I didn't realise how much my body was going to miss my daily cup of tea...

Friday, October 15, 2010

Mad Mission

Well it's done. I had been thinking that because Roethke's poem is written from the perspective of a man, I had to have a man sing it, but on the advice of a good musician friend who is a man, in the end I did it myself.

So the last recording session was on Wednesday, the mastering is finished today, and the artwork is complete also. It's been a hectic week to say the least, in the midst of which we passed the $7,500 mark on my Kickstarter project which gives me the needed funds to finish the project and get it on its way, and I became the new client of music agent Lori Peters. Her agency is called Mad Mission.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Almost there

Oy. I have been quietly groaning sometimes this past week and the only sound I can compare it with is when I gave birth! And now I'm trying to birth this album and so many elements are so close! The album is all but done except for the final vocal part for Roethke's poem In A Dark Time. I'm sitting here in New York City writing with the rain pouring down in the dark outside, and the thunder and lightning raging overhead. The release gig is at Symphony Space on October 30. Today it is October 11... It takes 12 business days to press a CD...Hanging in there...

On the plus side (and there is so much on the plus side) the Kickstarter project I launched to help complete the album is 85% funded today with 4 days to go. I'm so thrilled and grateful that it has come through in this way and everyone has rallied with incredible support.

Katie Andresen has designed most of the CDs I have released. What great fortune that she and Becky Uberti walked up to me after a gig at the Bottom Line once and asked if they could design for me. That was 17 years ago. She just sent me the designs for Singing the the Dark and its a great feeling of getting ready to let go, grabbing the highlighter to make the final corrections...

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

West

Just after I wrote the last post I got a call from the musician John Doyle to go on tour at 48 hours notice, so I took off on a tour through Washington, Pennsylvania and California. John and I started our careers together, so it was very enjoyable to perform some of the songs we had done together back then, as well as material that we each learned from each others more recent repertoire. I stopped off in Portland for an hour to go to Bushka's for dinner before getting back on a flight to Spokane. Caridwen picked me up at the airport (eventually! ha!) and I'm so glad I got to meet her as she's a rare soul.

The next morning I was up early and got take a short stroll through downtown and see the carousel. Unfortunately I was too early to get a ride on that! A short while later one decent rehearsal was enough for us to get our bearings, a nap to combat the jet lag, and then we were ready for our first performance in 17 years at the Bing Crosby Theatre.
I was sorry I didn't get to stay longer and see more of Spokane and the region. I have good friends not far north in Nelson so I'm very happy now to have made such good friends in Spokane and good reason to return.

Seattle was next where we played The Triple Door, and then Traditions in Olympia where I always pick up some of their Peace Fleece. It's a lovely wool made by combining the wool from sheep of two family farms in Russia and Maine. They have a wonderful ochre this time and I got some new needles. I'd never gotten to see much of Olympia on previous visits so this time I enjoyed a stroll out to the lake and also to a great second hand bookshop where I picked up a copy of Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.

We had a day free in Portland next where I popped in to see The Secret Society Ballroom. It's a beautiful room and I'm looking forward to playing there on Saturday 27 November as part of the Singing in the Dark tour.

It was up early the next morning (4:45am) to fly to Philadelphia for the Celtic Festival in Bethlehem. We had two evening concerts over two days in a lovely concert hall and some old friends travelled from New York for them. I was almost finished The Count of Monte Cristo so I found another second hand bookstore and picked up another Dumas. Another thing I love to do when I'm on the road is to browse in thrift stores and Bethlehem has some great ones.

Then it was back west for the Sebastopol Celtic Festival. Cloud Moss has developed something really special in his festival over the years and I was really happy to return. The last time I played there was with Johnny Cunningham a few weeks before he died. There was a lot of warmth and good feeling in the room where most of the performances were held. It brought back a lot of good memories.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Tenement Talks


On Monday we'll officially release Sings from the East Village with an event at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The school is very excited about the event and while it's not a concert, there will be a few musical moments.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Back to School


We got back from our trip to Ireland last night. Now we can put the cardigans and jeans away for another while as the temperature is still high here.
We brought back a spear Róisín made from a fine piece of wood she found at Tara. We were there last week for the third annual Feis Teamhra: A Turn at Tara, which this year featured Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon, Colm Toibín, Aidan Brennan, Laoise Kelly and myself. It was a bright afternoon on the Hill and a very moving event. It was also our most successful event yet and augurs well for our plan to grow the event

As another school year begins I have a great sense of accomplishment having worked hard over the last year in the making of two albums, and they're both going to be released in the next couple of months.
Songs from the East Village comes out officially on September 20 when we'll have a public event at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.
As for Singing in the Dark, the single 'A Woman Like That' comes out on October 4, followed by the album on October 30. In the meantime I'm up to my eyes with work for the promotion of both albums and booking the tour.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Mothering

Last week while visiting the Oregon coast my daughter and I came upon a mother and her five blonde sons as we clambered over the rocks. The Dad was tossing stones into the sea and the older boys would sometimes run over to join him, but mostly they all clustered around the mother like cygnets around a swan. It was a beautiful sight. We talked a little and she told me that the oldest was seven. I was kind of in awe of their bringing five children into the world, and there they all were contentedly taking a walk on the beach on a Sunday. I know for me I have to work on my music in order to feel balanced, and it has been a challenge - albeit the most wonderfully rewarding one - to do that since my daughter was born, but I am in awe of women who can give themselves wholly to mothering. I was the youngest of five and I don't know how my mother did it.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Mixing


We are in the mixing stage, although mixing with Ross means there is still room to go back and make changes as we go. But I started at last to get a picture of the whole, of how the album will sound. Even though we're mixing there are two incomplete songs. One is 'The Crack in Stairs', a poem by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill in a translation by Paul Muldoon which I'm really happy that the Irish composer Elaine Agnew has agreed to set to music for me. It's been years since I worked in this genre of music and I'm looking forward to the challenge. I'm also thrilled to be working with the brilliant pianist Isabelle O'Connell who, like me, happens to be a Dubliner living in New York.
The other incomplete song is Theodore Roethke's 'In A Dark Time' which Frank London set to music for me. This still needs the musical talents of Eamon O'Leary and Lorin Sklamberg before it will be ready to add the vocals of a special guest...more on that later.
I was planning on spending a lot of time in Ireland this summer but it will have to be a short trip this year - I need to stay in the city and finish the album.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Pianos and Sugar

Perhaps one of the reasons I'm interested in genealogy is because my father never talked about his childhood: he once told me he couldn't remember the first twelve years of his life. During our last conversation I was telling him about some close friends who were dealing with mental illness, and Dad said "I don't know how you meet people like that; I don't know anyone like that, I never meet people like that." But it wasn't true.

There was the man who, some years previously, had worked in the Dublin confectionery firm my father managed, who asked to be moved to a different department because of bullying. Dad managed to get him transferred to a less stressful environment. After my father had retired, the man asked for his help again regarding a pending transfer. This time my father couldn't help and the man had to deal with the move. A few months later he died by suicide. My father was deeply shocked and it took him a long time to get over it.
Knowing about my interest in the family tree Dad once offered to bring me to visit a friend of his mother's when I was back from New York. "I'm not your mother's friend, John," said Madge, "I'm her cousin," and she proceeded to tell me much about the grandparents I had never met, and details of their life, some of which I was interested to observe my father hastily attempt to contradict.

"An enigma" was how I heard my father often described. He was a mystery man and full of secrets, and although I had my own difficulties with him I appreciated his qualities of wisdom, practicality, frugality and responsibility which, as I learned more about his childhood, I realised were very finely honed survival skills. I'm grateful that in the last years of his life we were close and I love and miss him very much.
As a child, my father found his father Matthew's drunken outbursts so scary that he would make sure to be in bed before his father got home from the pub. Mathew's own father had died "in an alcoholic stupor," I was told, when he was dropping someone home from the pub and he took a corner so quickly that his horse and cart overturned. This left his wife and two sons destitute and she, a published composer and musician, put the boys in school in Dublin and went to France as a governess to pay for their education. Matthew and his brother are in the 1911 census records, two years after their father's death, aged 9 and 13, now separated in a boarding school and industrial school.

Matthew grew up to meet and marry my grandmother Sarah, who had her own abandonment issues through the deaths of her parents and brother when she was in her teens. She lived for a time with an aunt who ran a pub in Derry before coming up to Dublin where she could, rarely for the time, have her own apartment on Haddington Road in which she kept her own piano. She liked sweets and cigarettes. Matthew rose through the ranks in the civil service where he had responsibility for the allocation of sugar during the war. The family consequently received lots of sugar-laden gifts and hampers at Christmas from companies that hoped my grandfather would remember them in the coming business year.

When my father left school his first job was in a jam factory, but he then got the opportunity to specialize in the study of sugar through a job with Clarnico's of London combined with a course of study at the London Polytechnic. After some years in London he completed the course and interviewed to be the manager of a confectionery company in Barbados. One of the last questions was "Are you married?" and when he answered "No", they offered him the job. He came home to say goodbye to his mother and two sisters (his father was already dead). His sisters were violinists in an orchestra run by my mother, and so they met and, their lives were never the same. Three weeks later he sailed for Barbados and a year after that she followed him out to the island of sugar cane. They lived in a house in St. Laurence Gap which is now a Mexican restaurant owned in part by an Irish couple. My mother was the church organist at St. Patrick's church in Bridgetown and Dad ran the Caribbean Confection Company. It was still there when I visited in 2000.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

President's Day


This morning I got up at 7am. That's not really that unusual, except that on a Sunday I would normally try to sneak back to bed after my breakfast by declaring movie time for my daughter. However today I had to be out of here by 7:45am in order to be at Temple Shearith on Central Park West to sing at an event there. The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, and her husband Martin were there to thank the congregation for an offering of over $170 that they sent to Ireland in 1847 to help victims of the Irish Famine. The Rabbi mentioned that an economist told him last week that in today's numbers we're talking $80,000. In those days the congregation was on Crosby Street and one March morning in 1847 the Rabbi called upon the people to reach into their pockets for the people of Ireland whose suffering, before the famine occurred, had been described by a British commission as the worst in Europe.
After the event I got a ride to St. Patrick's Cathedral in one of the diplomatic vehicles and was present for a very moving ceremony at the cathedral before heading back to the East Village for potato pancakes and some strong Irish tea.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

More Songs from the East Village


Oy, it's been awhile since I wrote. There's a lot going on. After a month in Ireland during which I completed a Music Network Traditional Music Tour with Paddy O'Brien, Cillian Vallely and Aidan Brennan, my daughter and I joined Lorin Sklamberg and Donogh Hennessy in Germany for a Saints & Tzadiks tour there. In Ireland the weather was temperate throughout and we enjoyed travelling in our minivan, but in Germany, while it was very cold, we travelled by train which was very relaxing. Barely even saw an autobahn the whole time.

Before I left New York in January I had finished up the album Songs from the East Village, but while we were away the EVCS Parent's Committee made a request that I was delighted to receive, which involved more work when I came back. I had long felt that being a CD from the Lower East Side, it would have been wonderful to have a Puerto Rican track, and that is what they felt aswell, so when I returned I went back to the studio with a wonderful local pianist Ray Santiago, whom I knew from performances in the local community garden Dias y Flores. Ray recorded piano and congas for two songs and the vocals were provided by students, parents, grandparents and teachers. The school's vice principal Bradley Goodman brought the project to Kickstarter to find the finds we needed to finish the album and we quickly reached our goal: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1027059394/songs-from-the-east-village
Now the album really is done and we're going to prepare to launch it nationally in September.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Into the West


We’re driving through Roscommon in the rain, on the second week of a Music Network tour of Ireland. Yesterday we were in Moate, Co. Westmeath and Róisín and I took a walk out of the town past the new estates and onto a little country road that leads to the Táin trail and a duck sanctuary. On the way back Róisín took a short cut through a building site. She was singing a song she made up when she suddenly saw a dead fox which startled her. It had a beautiful russet coat and it was strange to see such a wild and beautiful thing lying among the concrete and debris of the site.

The morning we arrived in Dublin we went to my uncle's funeral in Rathfarnham and there we had seen a fox in the car park of the pub where we had tea and sandwiches afterwards. Apparently that fox lives there and is often seen. Ireland was still in the thick of the big freeze and there was deep snow and ice everywhere so the fox probably had to do a bit more foraging to get food.

A couple of nights later a rise in temperature and a heavy rain washed it all away just in time for the start of our tour. We began at The Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, followed by The Source in Thurles, and we headed southwest again to arrive in Waterville in a howling gale. Our hosts gave us a most warm welcome and there was a capacity crowd in Tech Amergin. The following morning it was warm enough for Róisín to take off her shoes and socks and paddle in the Atlantic in the sunshine. Then it was on over the misty hills to a beautiful part of south Limerick where we played in Knockainey Church to another full house and had some time for a chat by the fireside in Moloney’s afterwards.

On Sunday we were in another church in New Ross. The weather was turning cold again but the warm welcome made all the difference with pots of tea and dark chocolate.

We had a day off in Dublin before our concert on Tuesday at The Coach House in Dublin Castle. One of our favourite things to do on the road is explore charity shops and this time we found some great books about ponies and puppies and princesses and even a perfect medical case for Róisín’s medical equipment kit – stethoscope, thermometer, band aids etc.

The concert at The Coach House was sold out and a very special night with a lot of musical friends in the audience.