Blog this…

I have a load of emails in my inbox with the subject line “Blog this”, which are meant to remind me to follow up on something or other. I don’t always get around to blogging the notes I sent, but here are the few in my inbox at the moment:

Notes:

Creative Review blog cover an interesting project by Youth Music in the UK to celebrate their 10th year. I was doing a little research into international musical instrument projects last year for the Music Capital Scheme and came across Youth Music. They instigate some very worthwhile projects in the UK and are worth checking out.

On that note, the deadline for the Music Capital Scheme landed on Monday last and my office in the coach house is once again the most flammable room in the building with piles of applications in boxes and on my desk. Watch the Music Network website for announcements of awards in December.

Jennifer Walshe continues to stir things up in the US – read the brow-wrinkling description of her latest project Ma La Pert in Issue Project Room

NorthWest Connects is a networking event coming up on Sat 28 Nov in Sligo which promises to bring together local creativity and regional networks. I’d love to be attending – it looks like a promising hub for creative entrepreneurs and businesses in the North West area. The attendee list is already the Who’s Who of the most innovative people working in the North West, and indeed in Ireland as a whole and the most amazing part is it’s free! Twitter

Gigs:

Music Network are in the middle of another tour at the moment – Songs for Cecelia is stopping at a venue near you over the next week or so. The Dublin takes place in the Coach House this coming Tuesday although I’m pretty sure there are very few tickets left.

I like that the emails bulletins from Note Productions are titled “a little note”. The latest one contains details of an upcoming performance by Iarla Ó Lionáird in preferred Note venue, St Audeons Church. The Dublin concert features a guest performance by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and should be a lovely gig!

Apparently Tuesday nights are the nights of choice for contemporary music in Dublin. I attended the second of the Kaleidoscope series in the Odessa Club on Tuesday last, which featured performances by Malachy Robinson, Clíodhna Ryan, Kate Ellis, Cora Venus Lunny, Martin Tourish & Lorcán Mac Mathuna and an improv by Enda Bates & Linda Buckley. Tourish’s Exegesis left a lasting impression and I’d like to hear the work again when I’m not falling down with exhaustion after a mental day.

Starting this coming Tuesday, New Sound Worlds is a programme curated by Siobhán Cleary, taking place in the NCH each Tues for four weeks. There is no websites for the series but information on tickets is available from the NCH site. Word on the ground is that people will be giving their right arm to attend the first performance by Sarah Leonard and Rolf Hind on Tues. I’ll be putting my hand in at the Coach House so won’t make the first performance but it should be excellent.

On one last note, I promised a quick mention to a new night starting in Dublin- SALT is a new gay music night in Twisted Pepper, every second Wed. The organisers are billing it as a new night targeted at young gay people who are not comfortable with the gay scene as it exists and could well be a fun night!

Culture Notes

So I found a little while to write a quick blog post while chatting with my brother (while he torments some sort of ghost army in Wolfenstein so the chat is really me talking and him shouting “OH MY GOD, where did that guy come from??!!”)

The second in the Irish Composers Collective’s National Concert Hall series is tomorrow night and the performance takes place upstairs in the Kevin Barry Room at 8.30pm. The performance features eight works by Irish composers with performances by Dan Bodwell on the Double Bass and Michael Quinn on the harpsichord. I usually make it along to the ICC events but I may be caught for time tomorrow as I’m picking up conductor James Wood from the airport.

I just noticed The Winding Stair Bookshop is featuring cheap as chips gig – €5 for Peter Delaney and the gig is titled Eleventy Four (I think) tonight at 7.30pm.

Interesting piece on Persepolis from Fearghus at Bodies and Buildings relevant to sampling and mash-ups…

Wexford forging a reputation outside of the opera comfort zone

New deadline for Arts Council bursaries

Dublin Central Arts Workers continue to post interesting pieces

I made it along to the DEAF09 fundraiser on Friday night last in Meeting House Square in Temple Bar. There were some pretty great performances on the evening and it was the perfect location for the fundraiser with a marquee covering the whole of the square. The chilly wind was staved off by pints and paella although I didn’t stay too late as I was trying to get through some more work for the Tipperary gig.

Speaking of which – if anyone is around Tipperary in the next two weeks keep an eye out for the vivid colours of the Music for the Golden Vale posters! This one is in the supermarket in Thurles formerly known as the L&N on Friar St – I can’t remember it’s new name!

Gig reviews

I’m going to hold off on writing about the Crash Ensemble gig on Friday last for a few days as I forgot to pick up a programme at the performance in Samuel Beckett. I’d rather not go into it without the programme as I can’t remember exactly the works and order of those works. So, more on that later…

I did, however, pick up a programme for the Sunday evening performance of Persian and Sephardic music in Samuel Beckett. The performance was organised by the Herzog Centre and the School of Religions and Theology in Trinity College Dublin, in particular Dr Roja Fazaeli, Lecturer in Islamic Studies and Dr Zuleika Rodgers, Lecturer in Jewish Studies. It included performers from Ireland, England, the Netherlands, Iran, Russia and Italy. The music poses a challenge to me as it’s not often we have an opportunity to listen to live performances of music from Jewish and Islamic cultures and it was a complete learning experience. (Reading around Persian and Sephardic cultures following the performance was an even steeper learning curve!)

It may seem ridiculous to be making fashion comments in a music review but a special mention has to be made of soprano Judith Mok! The rest of the band appeared in all black and the six of them were perfectly balanced, three to the left and three to the right of Mok’s, what can only be described as magnificent, appearance. I know I’m prone to over-use of adjectives at times but I don’t think there are enough adjectives in the English language to describe the scarlet and cream, gold-waisted, silver-tasselled dress in which Mok stood in her straight-backed Jewish princess style! And that was before she started to sing.

Mok was on flying form on Sunday, as were all the musicians, demonstrating extraordinary control over her voice. They opened with three Sephardic songs, one of which, the lullaby Nani, I last heard Mok perform from a bathtub (fully-clothed mind) in Nick Roth’s house at a pre-Christmas party (believe it , I have the photos to prove it). Bathtub or no, the two lullabies Nana and Nani were beautiful, the strings and Roth’s Saxophone were mewling and keening under Mok’s gentle melody. The instruments alternated with Mok on the melody and occasionally one or other wandered off on a solo which was informal, improvised and perfect for a lullaby. Francesco Turrisi skipped between keyboard and percussion and Simon Jermyn provided a solid bass line, occasionally taking the reins in jazz-style solos that worked well with the Jewish melancholy.

The group performed twelve works, Mok or Roth explaining the works before they were performed. There is quite a legacy to some of the pieces – Adio Querida is a Spanish Sephardic song lamenting the Jewish goodbye to Spain as they left during the Spanish inquisition. Roth also introduced all the performers individually and had a palaver of a story around the Santur player Javi Afsari Rad; apparently the group were to perform with another Santur player who, through circumstances out of their control, had to cancel last minute. After tracing him through a variety of countries they finally found Javid in Norway and invited him to perform with them. This was three days before the performance on Sunday evening. Javid accepted the invitation and left Oslo to drive the two and a half hours to the Ryanair airport on Saturday evening only to find the flight cancelled! Back to Oslo and book an early flight Sunday, arrive in Dublin Sunday, rehearse and perform Sunday evening! Phew! His performance was wonderful and there was no indication of the extreme exhaustion he was surely suffering!

One of the real pleasures of the evening for me personally was hearing Cora Venus Lunny bring the viola into a space that was entirely its own. Whether plucking quietly at the strings, complementing Mok’s melody with an extra voice or during an improvised solo, Lunny displayed a mastery over an area of performance I have not heard her engage with previously. Lunny is soon to release a solo album so watch this space for more information.

Dublin living

As  much as I talk about missing the country and spending a lot of time on trains up and down to Tipp/Sligo/Cork I still adore living in this city and this morning was a prefect example of why. I had to pop out to do a site visit – at a deadly new space in the Blackpitts, Dublin Art Mill - and decided as I had some time to spare I’d pick up some messages on the way home. I picked up more than anticipated and ended up having to get a taxi home. I gave my address, near the Peppercanister, and the driver, a Dub, asked what was overthat direction. I said “home” and he launched into an incredible list, from memory, of all the artists who lived in the area.

The whole area around the Peppercanister, from Clare St, through Merrion Sq, to the canal and over to Baggot St was once a poorer part of Dublin with loads of families in the tall Georgian houses. It turns out Brendan Behan lived 5 doors up from where I am now. I knew of the Joyce and Wilde houses nearby because of the plaques on the building fronts but was oblivious to the fact that Beckett lived and wrote four of his books on Clare St, just across from that old bookshop (that now tragically has been replaced by a Henry Jermyn clothes shop). The driver, a film maker called Mick Foran, even had a book listing the streets of Dublin and all the artists who lived on those streets.

Just as I was getting out of the taxi he offered me a deal; he gave me a CD of an interview with Brendan Behan telling anecdotes and singing Irish folk songs and in return I was to check out his last film online and leave a comment. I’m listening to the CD as I speak and it’s wonderful (Behan blows his nose, excuses himself and says “That’s what they call the national guitar. If anyone is thinking of coming to Ireland you better stop unless you’ve got very good nostrils”). So please check out Mick’s film on Vimeo – it’s called Bullets and Brothers. My computer is acting up this afternoon and I can’t viewing the film but will watch it from a different computer tomorrow.

In other news – a fun night planned – My Heart is in the East in Samuel Beckett at 6.30pm, then a nice dinner with a friend and then JJ Smyths to check out Pendulum.