Radio Show – Episode 16 – Ancestral Land – November 6, 2016

Many of us who love Celtic music are drawn to something within the music itself that speaks strongly of an ancestral knowing that we recognize or for which we yearn — an expression that is ultimately sourced from a people’s intimate and profoundly interwoven relationship with the earth herself.

Our special guest for this episode is Mark Morey – a leader in the work of helping people, groups, and organizations build healthy community through deep connection with nature. Of Irish descent, a musician himself, and as one who is involved with Standing Rock, Mark brings us potent insights regarding regenerative community, the power of music, ancestral longing, and the meaning of these wellsprings for us. Please join us.

12:01: John O’Donohue – The magic of perception
12:04: Alan Stivell – Gaeltacht
12:08: Seamus Byrne – Track 1
12:09: Mark Morey – Interview
12:14: Mark Morey – Come by the Hills
12:19: Mark Morey – Interview
12:21: Knodel and Valencia – Calling of the Cows
12:27: Mark Morey – Interview
12:36: Ffynnon – Hiraeth Am Feirion
12:38: Seamus Byrne
12:40: Mark Morey – Interview
12:51: Andy M. Stewart, Phil Cunningham, Manus Lunny – Treorachadh-I Mourn For the Highlands

Your host is Celtic harper and storyteller Jane Valencia.

Listen to the latest show on demand.

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Format: “Track Title” – Artist (CD Title)

“The Magic of Perception” – John O’Donohue (Beauty: the Invisible Embrace)
John O’Donohue was a much beloved Irish poet, author, and philosopher. His writings on Celtic spirituality captured popular imagination. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 52, and many, many people around the world mourn him still. I love this piece, which cheerfully expresses how the land might love us.

“Heman Dubh” – an excerpt from “Gaeltacht” – Alan Stivell (Renaissance of the Celtic Harp)

Here we enjoy Breton harper and composer Alan Stivell on wire-strung harp. “Gaeltacht” is a suite of traditional tunes from the Gaelic speaking lands of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, and the piece played here is “Heman Dubh,” a Hebridean work song. Alan Stivell’s Renaissance of the Celtic Harp, an album from 1972, helped fuel a revival of Celtic folk music, and inspired a generation of people to take up the harp, including myself. Stivell’s music in particular also served to ignite the return of Breton music and regionalism to France, restoring the Breton harp to Brittany after its absence since before the French Revolution in 1789.

I’m delighted to feature an interview on today’s show with cultural change agent and musician of Irish and Scottish origin, Mark Morey. Mark was on Vashon two weeks ago, and we recorded the interview at that time.

“Interview: Part 1” – Mark Morey
Regenerative culture can be briefly defined as a mutually beneficial and enhancing way of being for individuals, community, and the earth. Rather than operating in a cycle of depletion, regenerative culture nourishes successive levels of diversity, creativity, compassion, and abundance that serves the well-being of humanity and nature alike.

Mark describes his experience with the Maine Fiddle Camp as an example of regenerative community.

“Come by the Hills” – Mark Morey and Friends (Performance at the Maine Fiddle Camp)
Mark and his friends perform a song that he learned from an Irish musician. This song is an invitation to discover for oneself the music and stories held within experiences of the land. It was written by W. Gordon Smith, a Scottish playwright, who set the lyrics to a traditional Irish song.

“Interview: Part 2” – Mark Morey
Music and community. Personal connection to the land and the elements can help restore culture …

“Calling of the Cows” – Knodel and Valencia (Forest)
At a fiddle retreat weekend back in the early ’90s, multi-instrumentalist and harp teacher to many of us in the San Francisco South Bay Area at the time, Chris Caswell played his Scottish bagpipes in a misty field. The cows gathered, drawn by the sound. We all listened to the music, cows and humans alike, and maybe the trees too. It seemed that a larger music wove all around us and wove us together.

Deb Knodel and I play here on a pair of large wire-strung harps.

“Interview: Part 3” – Mark Morey
Mark describes gathering songs and stories from experiences with nature, and delves into the power of music to heal and nourish culture.

“Hiraeth am Feirion (Longing for Meirionshire) – Ffynnon (Debatable Lands)
Hiraeth is, I believe, a longing for home and homecoming in the deepest sense: You know you’re part of the land, and you know that the land knows you.

Lyrics of this song in English:

There is a mountain in the sea which hides Meirioneth
I had sight of it once only before it broke my heart
Wind from the sea and sun from the mountain
Grey rocks instead of trees
And gulls instead of people

I will make a boat of the oak of love
And its mast, the wood of experience
And put longing in its sail to make it go

Wave to wave to my own land

“Interview: Part 4” – Mark Morey
Mark shares about Standing Rock, and ties in what is happening there with all we have spoken about in this show. Mark is committed to helping the Water Protectors at Standing Rock. To find out more about how you too can support the Water Protectors, connect with Mark Morey on his Facebook page, or check out the Standing Rock Action Network, also on Facebook, which is an initiative which he and another have spear-headed.

“Treorachadh-I Mourn For the Highlands” – Andy M. Stewart, Phil Cunningham, Manus Lunny (Fire in the Glen)

Radio Show – Episode 14 – Creative Fire – October 2, 2016

In this episode we enjoy the golden light of autumn as we sit with our “Creative Fire.” Here we’ll find tales, tunes, and songs filled with the fire of the poet’s initiation, the love of the land, the Otherworld, and flat out musical fun.

02:12 Niamh Ni Charra – Cailleach An Airgid
05:00 Altan – Comb Your Hair and Curl It
08:42 Kathryn Tickell – Lads of Alnwick / Old as the Hills
15:19 Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill – The Mountain Lark / Tom Doherty’s Reel
18:51 Mary Black – Song for Ireland
25:04 Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin – The Incantation of Amergin
30:36 Jami Sieber – A World Behind the World
40:13 Priscilla Hernandez – Leaves Never Settle in the Wind
42:35 Cernunnos Rising – Heartbeat of Harvest
44:52 Past Tense – Soundscape of Relaxing Nature Sounds
45:44 Knodel and Valencia – Willafjord
49:00 Silly Wizard – Queen of Argyll
52:23 Sharlene Wallace and Kim Robertson – Comb Your Hair
57:22 The Harp Twins – White Wedding

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Format: Track Title – artist (CD Title)

“Cailleach An Airgid” – Niamh Ní Charra (Súgach Sámh / Happy Out)
Translated as “The Hag with the Money,” this is a traditional sean-nós song from Connemara. Catch the video on Niamh’s site or on Youtube. A fun twist to what could be a harsh song about a young lad after an old woman’s money.

Chorus
She is your granny, she is your granny
She’s your granny, the hag with the money …
Do you reckon he’d marry, do you reckon he’d marry
Do you reckon he’d marry the hag with the money?
I know he’ll not marry, I know he’ll not marry
‘Cause he’s too young and he’ll squander the money

Chorus

We’ll soon have a wedding, we’ll soon have a wedding
We’ll soon have a wedding, by two in the village
We’ll soon have a wedding, we’ll soon have a wedding
Between Sean Seamais Mhoir and Maire Ni Chathasaigh

“Comb Your Hair And Curl It / Gweebarra Bridge” – Altan (25th Anniversary Celebration)
Irish folk group Altan plays a slip jig followed by a reel. Come Your Hair and Curl it? In Celtic music you can create a tune around just about anything!

 “Lads of Alnwick/Old as the Hills” – Kathryn Tickell 
I love the unison at the beginning of the set of Kathryn on the northumbrian pipes and Julian Sutton on the melodian, perfectly in tune.

“The Mountain Lark/Tom Doherty’s Reel” – Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill (NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert)
As the set progresses, maybe you can feel how these two musicians drop deeper and deeper into the music and into the sensory world it’s creating. It’s a place where, as a musician, where your jaw becomes slack and it’s just you and the music and your instrument, and the sound all around. You might even find yourself drooling, you’re so into it. Martin and Dennis don’t do that – drool that is, but in the video you get that sense of going deeper and deeper into the music – at least, that’s how I feel listening to it.

“Song for Ireland” – Mary Black (Song for Ireland)
For the last quarter-century, singer Mary Black has been a dominant presence in Irish music, both at home and abroad. She has shared stages, tv shows and recording studios with some of the most revered performers of her time. She has also played a frontline role in bringing Irish music, past and present, to an increasingly appreciative and ever-growing global audience. The San Francisco Chronicle has described her as “One of the best interpretative singers around”. To me, her “Song for Ireland” captures the creative fire that one’s place – the very land itself – can ignite in our hearts.

The phrase “the fire in the head” refers to a visionary experience or poetic inspiration of a consuming nature. It appeared in “The song of Amergin”, a mystical poem spoken by Amairgen Glanglun, a bard from Irish legend, as he first stepped foot upon the land of Ireland, on the shores of Kenmare Bay. We’ll hear now a setting of this poem to music by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, including the poem spoken in Irish Gaelic.

“The Incantation of Amergin (Am Gaeth I M-Muir)” – Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin (Song of the Scribe)

Pádraigín has been recreating the ancient tradition of sung poetry by composing airs in the traditional style for early Irish poetry, medieval Irish poetry, Bardic poetry, traditional songs and new songs in Irish and poetry in Irish and English including works by leading Irish contemporary poets such as Ciarán Carson, Seamus Heaney, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Biddy Jenkinson, Michael Hartnett, and also earlier works by W. B Yeats, Olav Hauge, Fearghal Óg Mac an Bháird, Fear Flátha Ó Gnímh, Eoghan Rua Mac an Bháird among others.

She is accompanied here by Helen Davies on harp.

“A World Behind the World” – Jami Sieber (Timeless)
“The Song of the Wandering Aengus” Poem by William Butler Yeats,
“The Tale of Taliesin” Text and retelling by Jen Delyth (Celtic Folk Soul: Art, Myth and Symbol)

Against the backdrop of Jami Sieber’s atmospheric composition for cello and voice, we take a deep dive into visionary and poetic fire with W. B. Yeat’s quintessential poem as well as by way of Jen Delyth’s commentary and tale of the transformation of the boy Gwion Bach into the legendary Welsh bard, Taliesin who lived in the sixth century.

Electric cellist, vocalist, and composer, Jami Sieber will be performing
Friday, Oct 14, 7:30 PM
Vashon High School Theater

Tickets are available at Vashon Intuitive Arts, Vashon Bookshop; online at Brown Paper Tickets
Sponsored by Woman’s Way Red Lodge.

“Leaves Never Settle in the Wind” – Priscilla Hernandez (Incantations)
A lovely song for Autumn.

“Heartbeat of Harvest”- Cernunnos Rising (Wild Soul)
… and another song honoring the Harvest.

“Willafjord” – Knodel & Valencia (Forest)
When Deb and I work up music together, we pull from any manner of inspirations. With this Shetland tune, were reminded of Harry Bellafonte’s “Jamaica Farewell.” That piece inspired our choices of a calypso style rhythms, and a “steel drum” sound and some strumming on our harps. We had the great pleasure of performing a trio version of this piece with Kim Robertson at the International Society of Folk Harpers & Craftsmen Conference held in Vermont in 1994. Kim is an absolutely inspiring, fun, and generous harper, and I count the experience of our working up “Willafjord” with her and us performing it as among the “highs” of my harp career. That conference in Vermont was memorable in other ways: At that time, I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with my first child!

Deb Knodel, by the way, will be performing a house concert on Saturday, Oct. 15. at 6:30pm. If you’re in the Bay Area, do think about attending! Deb is a harper who possesses creative fire indeed. She has been working on some pretty blazing arrangements these past few years, and she is a just plain fun and friendly individual. You will definitely enjoy yourself if you attend. Email me if you want more information: fhceltic ‘at’ gmail.com

“Queen of Argyll” – Silly Wizard (Kiss the Tears Away)
One of my favorite songs from renowned Scottish band Silly Wizard

“Comb Your Hair” – Sharlene Wallace and Kim Robertson (Q & A)
Another version of “Comb Your Hair” by two harpers who know how to create and play some intricate and awesome arrangements. I’m always inspired by Kim, and Sharlene is fabulous too!

“Lochaber No More” – Spookytree
Thank you to you all for joining me in Forest Halls. A special thank you to my husband Andy Valencia for providing behind the scenes technical support. Our 29th anniversary is coming up,  and in honor of that I finish the show with a cover of a song we danced to at our wedding. This piece is decidedly not Celtic. It’s performed on pedal harp and electric harp by a pair of identical twins who have something like 75 videos of their covers of famous pieces, in which they dress alike (different costumes each time) and play with a flourish. This is Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”, arranged and performed by the Harp Twins, Camille and Kennerly Kitt.

“White Wedding” (Billy Idol) – The Harp Twins – Camille and Kennerly
Fun harp stuff here, with pedal effects from the electric harp and soundboard drumming on the pedal harp.

 

Radio Show – Episode 13 – Time of Fulfillment – September 18, 2016

In the Celtic Wheel, the Autumn Equinox is the time when we let go of striving, and enjoy instead the full and abundant harvest of all that we have experienced and worked toward in the year and in our lives. In this episode we gather in a joyful harvest of music plus a couple of early Irish poems related to the “time of fulfillment.”

Listen to the latest episode of Forest Halls Celtic on demand

02:15 Davy Spillane – Equinox
07:00 Relativity – Siún Ní Dhuibhir
11:05 Altan – The Rosses Highlands
15:46 Mary Dillon – The Banks of Claudy
20:04 Cara Dillon – Hill of Thieves
25:18 Clannad – Coinleach Glas An Fhomhair
31:11 Flora MacNeil – Craobh Nan Ubhal (Apple Tree)
33:52 Alasdair Fraser and Paul Machlis – Nighean Donn A’ Chuailein Riomhaich
36:31 Molly’s Revenge – Bart’s Rant
42:58 Sileas – Buain A’Choirce
44:40 Verlene Schermer – Bridget Cruise
48:34 Verlene Schermer – Persephone’s Art
52:59 Gaia Consort – The Scythe
55:47 Steeleye Span – Marigold/Harvest Home

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We begin our adventure with a couple of early Irish poems.

Poem – Irish, ninth century

Bees of small strength carry the flower-harvest with their feet;
the cattle bring to the mountain a rich-pouring abundance


Poem – Irish, eleventh century

This one begins:

A good reason for staying is autumn,
there is work then for everyone before the very short days …

“Equinox” – Davy Spillane (Shadow Hunter)
An Irish musician, songwriter and a player of uilleann pipes and low whistle, who first came to my attention by way of his solo playing in Riverdance.

“Siún Ní Dhuibhir” – Relativity (Celtic Odyssey)
Relativity was a Scots-Irish quartet formed in 1985 consisting of two Scottish brothers and an Irish brother and sister. The four members of the band were brothers Johnny Cunningham (fiddle) and Phil Cunningham (accordion, keyboard, whistle, bodhran) of the Scottish band Silly Wizard, and Irish sister and brother Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill (vocals, clavinet) and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill (vocals, guitar, keyboard) of the Bothy Band.

A lad pines over a lass, and in the song, it sounds like she’s rejected him and his heart is broken, however, she says …

Tell him from me
For certain I won’t marry him
For I heard that he wanted
Me with a dowry
Since I don’t have wealth
Or much of a fortune
Let him have whoever he wishes
And I’ll be about my own business


“The Rosses Highlands”” – Altan (Harvest Storm)

A lively song for autumn from this beloved Irish traditional band.

“The Banks Of Claudy” – Mary Dillon (North)
From her website:
“Formerly the lead singer in well-known 90s folk band Déanta, Mary has had a long absence from the music scene, but returns with a renewed energy after 15 years to release an acoustic album of Irish folk songs old and new.
Mary shares the pure and haunting vocal tone associated with her younger sister Cara Dillon, one of the biggest names on the UK and international folk scene. North will showcase the unique quality and maturity of Mary’s voice through a diverse collection of folk songs from the Ulster singing tradition.”

“Hill of Thieves” – Cara Dillon (Hill of Thieves)

From Wikipedia:
The song “Hill of Thieves” was voted by BBC listeners as one of the “Top 10” original songs to come out of Northern Ireland. She is the sister of Mary Dillon, formerly of Déanta. Dillon continues in 2012 to work with her husband Sam Lakeman who backs her on piano and guitar.

“Coinleach Glas an Fhomhair” – Clannad (Magical Ring)
(The Green Stubble-Field of Autumn)
Another “pining” song.

On the green stubble-fields of autumn
I saw you, my sweetheart
Nice were your feet in shoes
And wonderful your nimble gait
Your hair the color of roses
And your ringlets tightly plaited ….

Alas that we’re not married
Or on board ship sailing away
What I heard on Sunday
As conversation among the women
That she was going to be married
To a young man from the place.
Sweetheart take my advice
And this Autumn stay as you are
And don’t tell anyone, my love,
That you are my love.


“Apple Tree” – Flora MacNeil (Craobh Nan Ubhal)

A lovely blessing song for Apple!
Oh apple tree
Apple tree, branch of the apple tree
Oh apple tree
Know the tree that is mine
The tallest with the sweetest apples
Its trunk strikes downwards, its top is bending
Apple tree, may God be with you
May the east and the west be with you
May every sun and moon be with you
May every element be with you

From Wikipedia:
MacNeil was born in 1928 on the island of Barra, one of Gaelic song’s most important strongholds. There were singers on either side of her family, but this was a time when the menfolk were often away at sea for long periods, leaving the women to raise the children and tend the croft – singing all the while, to assuage their labours – and most of MacNeil’s repertoire was passed on from her mother, Ann Gillies.

A quote:
“Traditional songs tended to run in families and I was fortunate that my mother and her family had a great love for the poetry and the music of the old songs. It was natural for them to sing, whatever they were doing at the time or whatever mood they were in. My aunt Mary, in particular, was always ready, at any time I called on her, to drop whatever she was doing, to discuss a song with me, and perhaps, in this way, long forgotten verses would be recollected. So I learned a great many songs at an early age without any conscious effort. As is to be expected on a small island, so many songs deal with the sea, but, of course, many of them may not originally be Barra songs. Nevertheless the old songs were preserved more in the southernmost islands of Barra and South Uist possibly because the Reformed Church tended to discourage music elsewhere.”

“Nighean Donn A’ Chuailein Riomhaich” – Alasdair Fraser & Paul Machlis (Skyedance) [Brown Haired Girl With Lovely Tresses]
From the Patrick McDonald’s A Collection of Highland Vocal Airs, 1784 arranged and performed on fiddle and keyboard.

Molly’s Revenge- Bart’s Rant (Aged 10 Years)

Molly’s Revenge is a dynamic, acoustic west coast Celtic band of bagpipes, whistle, and fiddle. Great fun! They are performing a house concert in Gig Harbor. Here’s the info:

*WHEN:* Sunday, October 23rd at 7:00 pm in Gig Harbor
Contact: HarborHouseConcerts  *at* gmail.com

Bring your instrument(s), voice, and/or dancing feet and join us in an informal post-concert Scottish/Irish session.

“Buain A’Choirce” – Sileas (Playing on Light)

Patsy Seddon on lead vocals, and electro harp. Mary MacMaster on wire-strung harp. Another song of longing:

One day I was reaping oats
I made a cut which was not easy
I sat at the top of the field
Trying to see someone like you
Trying to see someone like you
A brown-haired man with a fair face ….

Oh little seagull who swims the straights
Take my greeting to my love

“Bridget Cruise” – Verlene Schermer (Wishing You Well)
A Turlough O’Carolan tune played on a double strung harp!

Verlene Schermer is a hospital musician at Stanford University and El Camino Hospitals in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. This piece is a part of her vast repertoire of soothing melodies that she plays on her double-strung Celtic harp for patients, family, and staff. …  In addition to her hospital music, she performs in concert on electric harp and cross-strung chromatic harp, accompanying her versatile, expressive voice either solo or with her band.

“Persephone’s Art” – Verlene Schermer (Persephone’s Art)
A song composed by Verlene that expresses in a contemporary voice and style the potent ancient Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, and the turning of the seasons.

“The Scythe Artist” – Gaia Consort (Evolve)
A quintessential harvest song by a Seattle-based pagan band spear-headed by Christopher Bingham and Sue Tinney. Their musical project has transformed and they now perform as the Bone Poets Orchestra.

“Marigold / Harvest Home” – Steeleye Span (Sails of Silver)
A wonderful piece of music honoring the harvest and English country life.