Singing in the Dark

Through the Bitter Frost & Snow

2012-01-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

At last it's snowing in New York. On our way to her drama class my daughter didn't even want to take a bus or cab today but to skip in the snow and throw snowballs. When I was seven months pregnant and on tour in Ireland I remember finding it difficult to play guitar and then I more or less put it away. I took it up again a few weeks ago and have been playing regularly. About time as the child is now nine. Years.
Last week I had another recording session for 'Belong' at Excello Studios in Brooklyn with Ryan McGiver, Lindsey Horner, Erik Della Penna and Allison Miller. We recorded the basic tracks for two songs "Down By The Liffeyside" (not the traditional song but my own) and "I Could Be Happy". The chorus of the latter song still needs completion but music is there. There's another song that's been hanging around that I call "Bring Back the Dead" but I'm not sure that's what it ultimately wants to be called, and satisfactory lyrics beyond the one verse are not forthcoming, though it has withstood a few rewrites over the past decade.
I also had a recording session for 'Smarty Girl' the audiobook of my friend Honor Molloy's beautiful novel, her story of growing up in Dublin in the 1960s with her mother (an American writer), father (a well known actor) and siblings. Honor invited me to compose and arrange music for the audiobook which will be released by Simon & Schuster in the spring.
For that project Brendan O'Shea and Donie Ryan played guitar and banjo beautifully on melodies I wrote for Honor's lyrics of two songs "Dartinne" and "Goosetown". Brendan also laid down some harmonica. Next week Shahzad Ismaily is going to record some appropriate musical weirdness and Marta Cook will be recording harp.
In the meantime, I have a few songs to finish so that I can start into the home strait of recording "Belong".

Recording with Michelle

2011-12-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I met Michelle Kinney to record her playing cello on a number of songs for the new album at Ross Bonadonna's Wombat Studios in Brooklyn. Michelle flew in yesterday from her home in Minneapolis. When we met at the studio door I remembered that it's been 17 years since we began recording 'Bones'. It's been a decade since I recorded 'Prophecy' and most of the songs on this album were written since then. There are also two songs from before then that for some reason I'm only getting around to putting on an album now. In all, I know I have too many songs for the album so at some stage I'll have to figure out which ones end up on it.
On Sunday evening I was at the studio with Erik Della Penna, Lindsey Horner and Alli Miller rehearsing three songs that have yet to be recorded. While I still have to finish the lyrics, musically they're mostly there, and I performed one of them, 'Down By The Liffeyside', in New Mexico and Arizona a couple of weeks ago with Ryan McGiver and Jason Sypher.
I'm working on a couple of new songs which may make it on to the album yet, tentatively titled 'Star' and 'Patience'.

My Favourite State

2011-12-04T16:26:00.000-08:00

When Ryan McGiver and I flew into Dallas on Thursday our connecting flight to Albuquerque was delayed. Then we got on one which took us half way until the pilot had to turn back because of high winds. So we were delighted to get there on Friday in time for our performance at The Outpost Performance Space. We had a brilliant time there a year ago with Jason Sypher on the end of our tour for ‘Singing in the Dark’ and we hadn't performed together since so we were excited to play some of the new songs from the forthcoming album I've been working on. Tentatively titled ‘Belong’, it consists of songs I’ve written over the past decade and is the kind of album that follows on from ‘Prophecy’ (2002) and ‘Bones’ (1995), with some musical guests who previously appeared on either or both of those albums.

I've played in Albuquerque for many years so it was an audience familiar with the different kinds of music I've done in recent years and a good place to perform some of the new songs.

Then it was on to the lovely Flagstaff on Saturday. We had never been there but heard great things and our experience of it was wonderful. The interstate had been closed and there was heavy snow in the morning so we weren't sure we'd get in until our flight landed and the highway reopened and we made it just in time for soundcheck. We really got to know a lot of the audience in hanging out after the show and we have to go back there!

Currently post-sound check at the amazing Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix and RYan made the comment that you could love in the dressing room here. What a beautiful venue and a great home for an incredible collection of musical instruments from all over the world.

United Nations and Poetry Society of America

2011-11-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

I received two lovely commissions to write and perform new work in October. Cristina Diez of FTD Fourth World in New York invited me to write a song based on texts from people living in poverty in Ireland to perform at an event to commemorate International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Irish singer songwriter Michael Brunnock worked with me on the song we called 'Be Change' and we performed it at the United Nations on October 17.

Alice Quinn of the Poetry Society of America invited me to perform at the launch of the Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry, which took place at Poet's House on October 25. Two of the songs on my album 'Singing in the Dark' are in the Anthology as poems - Theodore Roethke's 'In A Dark Time' and Anne Sexton's 'A Woman Like That', and Alice asked if I would write music for another poem from the Anthology. I chose Paul Laurence Dunbar's 'Life's Tragedy':

It may be misery not to sing at all,
And to go silent through the brimming day;
It may be misery never to be loved,
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.

To sing the perfect song,
And by a half-tone lost the key,
There the potent sorrow, there the grief,
The pale, sad staring of Life's Tragedy.

To have come near to the perfect love,
Not the hot passion of untempered youth,
But that which lies aside its vanity,
And gives, for thy trusting worship, truth.

This, this indeed is to be accursed,
For if we mortals love, or if we sing,
We count our joys not by what we have,
But by what kept us from that perfect thing.

It was wonderful to debut the song in front of a room packed with poetry lovers and to be performing with Erik Della Penna and Jason Sypher once again.
.

Autumn in New York

2011-10-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

Folks, thanks for stopping by my blog. It’s been a very creative twelve months since I released Singing in the Dark. After touring in the winter and spring, during this summer I did some travelling in the northwest of the U.S. and visited the beautiful town of Nelson, B.C. In Ireland I had some wonderful experiences performing at festivals in Kilkenny, Bantry and in Cavan at the wonderful Fleadh they had there this year.

Now I’m back in New York and heading toward completion of a new album which I intend to release in the spring and which has the working title of ‘Belong’. On Saturday night last the new video of a song from that album ‘No Jericho’, directed by Niall McKay, was screened at NYU’s Cantor Film Center as part of Irish Film NY, a screening festival for new Irish films.

I’ve been commissioned to write a song for International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17 when I will perform the song at an event at the UN. The event will run from 1:15 until 2:30pm at the ECOSOC Chamber in the United Nations North Lawn Building. Admission is free and open to the public but you must RSVP, and it is requested that you do so before October by sending an e-mail to un.ny@atd-fourthworld.org or calling 212-228-1339.

Interestingly, this Day for the Eradication of World Poverty will coincide with the month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. I’m watching the events unfolding there with great interest. My neighbor Ryan stopped by on his way to visit the protesters this morning and is going to pick up some sweaters and jackets from me this week as they’re going to need lots of layers as the temperatures drop.

The Irish and The Jews of Evanston & Chicago

2011-04-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm recovering from a great weekend. On Saturday I flew to Chicago to perform with Mick Moloney in his concert 'If It Wasn't for the Irish & the Jews' at the Pick-Staigler Hall at Northwestern University in Evanston. On the flight I met with Dana Lyn, Brendan Dolan and Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, whom I last saw when I did this show with Mick at Symphony Space in 2009. When we arrived for rehearsal and sound check the dancer Niall O'Leary was already there and he and I slipped away to see what was on at the Block Museum across the way. There was an interesting show by Kiki Smith, but it was such a beautiful day we were inclined to stay outside and so followed the map of the sculpture park. They have a couple of lovely pieces by Joan Miro (the title of the first was 'Monument Erected in the Middle of the Ocean to the Glory of the Wind') and a Henry Moore which it was hard not to touch. Then we strolled over and just took in the vastness of the lake and the trees on the beautiful sunny afternoon.
The performance itself was great - Mick always puts together an interesting show - with those I mentioned above all onstage along with Jimmy Keane and Liz Hanley and special guests Arik Luck & Sari Greenberg, who did a wonderfully entertaining set of songs from Moishe Oysher.
Jimmy Keane told us the Midwest Fleadh was on at the Irish Heritage Center and so after the concert a buch of us piled into Jimmy;s car and headed to Chicago. I'd never been to the center and it's in a former public school. There's a bar on the ground floor and there were sessions everywhere, including one with two cellists. I was very glad to run into my old friends Theo Paige, Dave Cory and Brian O'Halloran, had a brief chat with Oisín MacDiarmada at the bar, and then the good fortune to finally meet Con Ó Drisceoil. We chatted in the warm Chicago night as we waited on our respective modes of transport back to our hotels and the tunes raged inside the Heritage Center.

NYC

2011-04-04T06:44:00.000-07:00

We arrived back in New York last week.

Graz, Austria

2011-03-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

We flew from Hannover to Vienna today and took a train to Graz. This is my third time to play in Die Brücke where Doris always makes us most welcome and we get to sample her homemade Schnapps. It’s such a pleasure to do these tours by train and not be tied to a vehicle – we’ve barely seen an autobahn. Each journey is relaxing and you don’t arrive at the gig exhausted from the road. Today while we waited for the train to Graz, Róisín and I took a walk in the graveyard beside the train station at Friedhof Meidling.

When the train arrived Róisín and I got a compartment to ourselves in the first class car and so we pulled all the Pullman seats fully forward and flat to make a bed and dozed all the way to Graz. It was a sunny day and occasionally we could see the tops of trees or a church spire.

I noticed, that in his review in The Guardian of Faber’s New Irish Stories Collection edited by Joseph O’Connor, Nicholas Lezard gives this beautiful quote from O’Connor’s introduction: “Ireland is still a country, for all its innumerable shames, where the empathies involved in the sharing of a story are valued for their possibilities of hope and healing.”

Saints & Tzadiks European Tour

2011-03-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Almost a week into the Saints & Tzadiks German/Danish/Austrian/French tour with Lorin Sklamberg, Aidan Brennan and Róisín…the news about the earthquake in Japan has been unsettling and it’s been difficult to get updates as we’ve been traveling almost every day. At the railway station in Copenhagen I picked up an English newspaper to read the recent reports, and have seen some shocking footage on FaceBook. It’s hard to fathom, hard to imagine how life is for the survivors in the devastated towns on the other side of the world in the aftermath of the earthquake and with the appalling threat of the deteriorating situation regarding the nuclear power plants.

On Sunday we performed at the Court Theatre in the Christianborg Palace, an amazing and well-preserved theatre which dates from the 1700s and which was frequented by Hans Christian Andersen. Mozart and Chopin also played there. Róisín has started to do a solo on 'River' and so she got to perform there too. We stayed in Copenhagen for our day off yesterday to explore the city and do our own Hans Christian Andersen trail. At noon we witnessed the changing of the guard at the Amalienborg Palace, and standing on the cobbled stones we talked about how soldiers in these pale blue uniforms had inspired many of Andersen’s stories. Suddenly I remembered that John Dowland had been court lutenist here and thought of him making himself at home here long ago. We had lunch at Nyhavn where Andersen lived on a few occasions, and then dropped into the Royal Theatre box office to pick up tickets for the ballet. The production, Et Folkesagn, is a modern version of a work by the renowned Danish ballet dancer and choreographer Bournonville and weaves a romantic tale set between the human and the otherworld. When we got back to the hotel room Róisín danced around for about an hour before climbing into bed and quickly falling asleep.

So Róisín and I return to Germany to join up with Lorin and Aidan for a performance in Hamburg tonight. Last week we performed in Augsburg, Kassel and at the wonderful Festival of Fürth where we were well looked after and enjoyed day-long workshops on Saturday with enthusiastic students.

Singing in the Dark in Ireland

2011-03-06T15:11:00.001-08:00

We just finished a tour of Ireland – the Irish release tour for Singing in the Dark.
As the album focuses on the topic of mental health, I collaborated for some of the events with people who work in the area of mental health, and I am grateful to the American Fund for Ireland, The South Lee HSE and Brendan McDonagh for their help in bringing the work to Ireland.

I arrived into Dublin on Tuesday 22 February and the following day had a rehearsal with Seamie O’Dowd and James Blennerhassett in James’ beautiful studio overlooking the south Leitrim Hills. The following morning we met up with Eamon O’Leary, over from New York, to record our first performance on the show Today with Pat Kenny on RTE 1 national radio which was broadcast the following day, the day of the general election in Ireland. We performed James Clarence Mangan’s The Nameless One and Leonard Cohen’s Anthem, and in between Pat talked with me about the link between madness and creativity.

Ireland seems very different than it was during my last trip here last summer. Everywhere there are signs that businesses have ceased operations. Almost everyone I talked with is exasperated with the handling of the financial crisis and feeling the pinch of reduced pay packets and strained finances. On the other hand there is less traffic on the roads and in the train stations, and people seem less rushed.

On Saturday afternoon Eamon and I did our first Irish in-store performance at a shop called The Celtic Note on Nassau Street. Some old friends were there to meet us as well as some new faces, some tourists, and new friends from the Irish Network of Critical Voices in Mental Health who were going on to attend Bob Whitaker’s lecture at the Edmund Burke Hall of Trinity College. We enjoyed giving some of the songs their first Irish outing and singing The Nameless One steps from where James Clarence Mangan had worked at Trinity College.

After the in-store I stepped across the road to attend Bob’s talk in the Arts Building at TCD. It was a packed auditorium where he spoke about the research he explored for his recent book Anatomy of an Epidemic. Bob’s book examines the effects of long-term use of medications such as anti-psychotics and anti-depressants within the United States in recent decades and gives evidence of research that suggests that long term use is having a disastrous effect on the mental health of American society in general. Since their introduction the percentage of people who have been diagnosed as chronically mentally ill and requiring of long term medications has increased dramatically.

Of course medications can save lives, lift people out of suicidal, psychotic and depressive states and help them rediscover enough stability in their lives to move forward on their own. But this is not the case for everyone. Too often people are prescribed medication as the first and sometimes the only treatment, when I believe what people need is to be presented with a range of options of which medication is a part.

Will Hall flew in from Portland on Sunday 27 to join us for the first gig at Whelan’s in Dublin. Will is a mental health counselor who runs Portland Hearing Voices and is the host of madnessradio.net. During each of the performances he talked about his life and work. At the performance in the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen we participated in a workshop on the topic of Creativity & Trauma with Irish psychiatrist Dr. Pat Bracken and from the non-profit Music Alive, which brings music to mental health care settings, Kevin O’Shanahan & Caoimhe Conlon. The following day we gave a lunchtime concert at The Glucksman Gallery at University College Cork before a performance that evening at The Pavilion in Cork. Finally we concluded with a concert at the Aula Maxima of NUI Galway as part of their Arts & Medicine Series.

There has been great feedback from all of the events and I’m looking forward to doing more work like this in Ireland later this year.

Singing in the West

2010-11-29T00:45:00.000-08:00

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.

Getting ready for release

2010-10-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

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...

Mad Mission

2010-10-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

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.

Almost there

2010-10-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

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...

West

2010-10-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

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.

Tenement Talks

2010-09-15T06:55:00.001-07:00

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.

Back to School

2010-09-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

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.

Mothering

2010-07-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Mixing

2010-06-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Pianos and Sugar

2010-06-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

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.

President's Day

2010-05-23T18:43:00.001-07:00

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.

More Songs from the East Village

2010-05-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

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.

Into the West

2010-01-21T06:48:00.000-08:00

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.

The Tiger

2009-12-09T08:51:00.000-08:00

When I first came up with the idea for a children's album of world music songs for our school, I spoke about it with my friend Sarita who, apart from being an amazing human being, is a gifted actress and storyteller. I asked her if she would contribute a piece to the album and a couple of weeks later we sat down in the playground with a tape recorder and she told me the story of her trip to the forests of Rajasthan, India, to save the tiger. It's a fascinating story and I know you'll enjoy hearing it.
We decided to develop it into a music piece and I came up with some cool tabla and percussion tracks and a melodic chorus. But when we recorded Sarita telling the story in the studio, it no longer felt like it needed a sung vocal.
At the time I was looking for an Indian fiddle, and Ross (Bonadonna, engineer) suggested his friend, the Indian classical violinist Trina Basu. I went to hear Trina that weekend in a concert with her teacher Sri Vittal Ramamurthy and loved hearing her play, and she graciously agreed to be part of our project.
I searched for a lot of sound samples to accompany the story. The water and jungle sounds were not hard to find, but it took a bit more delving to find a sample of the kind of bird one would actually find in the forests of Rajasthan, which I eventually found in the oriole that now sings in the track behind Sarita. I also located a peacock and then a really annoying New York City traffic snarl that we used for Sarita's return to Manhattan.
Melvin Gibbs is a world class bass player who happens to be a parent at our school and his track added immensely, in some way taking the character of the tiger and making the piece complete.

"No Need To Stress"

2009-12-07T12:44:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have meant intense work in the studio for me, but especially for R0ss as we've had a steady stream of musicians and child and parent vocalists laying down tracks. The album has taken shape quickly now and I'm really pleased with how it's sounding and how strong the songs and the performances are.
Dhuha and Shams Al Fatlawi came out to Brooklyn with their mother Suhair to lay down lead vocals for the song their father Muwafik gave us from their home town of Baghdad.
Edwin Merlin came down from his home in the Bronx one Sunday morning and put down some fine vocal tracks on "Echi Bu Uku Amaka" and "La Tarara". Though he graduated from EVCS in June Edwin was an integral member of CD Club throughout the spring.
A couple of people who didn't make it into the studio are Steve Schiffman and his daughter Chloe who sent us a gorgeous Hebrew song and Kid Lucky and his son Psyence who recorded a hip-hop anthem for the project - and for the school. It's very cool.

Tibet Tibet

2009-12-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

On November 15 the children in our school who come from Tibet came to the studio to record a song from their country for our CD. Some of the children were born in South India after their parents had left Tibet and gone there, but two students arrived directly to New York from Tibet this summer and started school in September.
There wasn't much time to prepare so I researched some Tibetan children's songs online. In the process I came across this beautiful footage of children in Tibet: http://www.vimeo.com/2498106. However in the end I found a lovely song recorded by Tenzin Mingyur and his daughters who live in Switzerland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wctv16pXG7o. Tenzin sent me the lyrics of the song, but as it happened, when our families arrived two of the women - Kunga and Dechen - were able to write out six verses for those who didn't know the song. We all sat in a circle and recorded the song a few times before breaking down into the duos of Sonam and Tenzin together, and Kunga and Dechen who begin the song. It was a good morning's work which we finished with an order of a few pies of Brooklyn's best pizza.
As we finished up I asked if anyone had thought of another song they wanted to record while they were there. A couple of people motioned to Sonam Wangchen who was easily persuaded to take to the vocal booth on his own and lay down a beautiful Tibetan song in one take. Entitled 'Snow', you'll hear that on the CD too.

Songs from the East Village

2009-11-10T20:47:00.001-08:00

I'm deep in the throes of producing an album for my daughter's school. I don't make perfect cupcakes and you have to do something! So we started recording before the summer and now the December deadline is looming.

I have seen for myself that at school talent shows today, lip-synching to the latest hits is being confused with talent. So I started to think of ways in which kids could be the stars of an album from their school with songs that come from their own families. Now we have songs from Iraq, Nigeria, Mauritius, the United States, Spain and of course Ireland. Much of today was spent laying down basic tracks for the piece from India.

No school tomorrow so it'll be a day in the studio for some of the girls. Sunday will be for the students from Tibet, some of whom arrived directly from there to New York a few months ago and are now students at our school.

Halloween

2009-11-03T06:08:00.000-08:00

Long ago in Ireland, people believed that this time was the beginning of the New Year: entering into the dark days of winter. Day began when the sun went down. I've always been a night person and love that time of day when the darkness comes.

For the fourth successive year, as the sun went down on Halloween, my daughter and I went to our community garden to join in our annual ritual. We do a little bit of trick-or-treating, but the real highlight is when we are gathered around the fire with our neighbours and friends and marshmallows are toasted. Everyone brings some food to share, and some bring a song (or a few of them).

We brought Welsh cheese that we were given the previous night at a midtown gathering of Celtic musicians, singer and poets. There I sang A Bhean Úd Thíos, a song of a woman captured by the fairies. She is nursing a fairy child and trying through the lyrics to send a message to her husband, giving him instructions as to how he might save her. I finished up with the Scots Craobh nan Ubhal and A Mhisg a Chur an Nollaig Oirnn. After each had represented their nation in song or poem, the Bretons got some tunes going and most of the room took to the floor, joining hands or little fingers, in dances that brought me back to the Fest Noz of Brittany in the late 1980s. My daughter was thrilled, and it reminded me of nights as a child when we would be on holiday in Donegal, or later in the Connemara Gaeltacht, when I took part in céilís and carried away a priceless feeling in my heart.