Pop-up Renaissance Faire

Cafe Goodluck in downtown Dartmouth organized a little pop-up Renaissance Faire yesterday with turkey legs and costumes!

Charlie & Ellen at the Helen Creighton Folk Club

Charlie and I had a great time at the Dartmouth Heritage Museum last week, playing as featured artists on a double bill at the Helen Creighton Folk Club! This regular event has an open mic portion and takes place at Evergreen House, where Helen Creighton lived. 

Pear Tree pre-orders open!

Adrianna Ciccone and I have recorded a Christmas album! Entitled The Pear Tree, it is an eight track fiddle and harp instrumental album. We've arranged a selection of our favourite carol melodies along with some original tunes and traditional tunes. Visit bandcamp to see the track listing and to hear a preview track! The album will be released on November 15, 2024. 

You can pre-save the album on streaming services here: Pre-Save!

La Journée de la Harpe

I had a lovely time in Montreal this weekend at La Journée de la Harpe, a festival organized by La Société des Harpistes de Montréal. I presented a workshop and performed in a concert with the wonderful kora player Zal Sissokho, and took in some very cool workshops and performances throughout the day. Thank you to the harp community of Montreal for such a great day!

Conundrum Duo Concert at Memory Lane

Jack and I had a very fun evening playing at Memory Lane Heritage Village for this Musique Royale concert. The music was followed by a delicious dinner inspired by our repertoire. Many thanks to all the organizers and volunteers who did an incredible job putting together this experience!

Our program consisted of works by Bach, Mozetich, Morlock, Shankar, MacKelvie, and Andres.

Photo by Charles Bourne

Fight Song

Scions' debut album "To Cry Out In The Wilderness" will be released on November 8th! In the meantime, we have released our first single "Fight Song" today.

The song features Cormac Culkeen (vocals), Andrew MacKelvie (bass clarinet), India Gailey (cello), Ellen Gibling (harp), Ross Burns (electric guitar), Gabriella Ciurcovich (double bass), Dave Grenon (live processing & effects), Michael Cloud Duguay (voice), Rebecca Fairless (pipe organ) Donald MacLennan (violin), Al Melnyk (granular synth), and the Scions choir: Jay Perry, Arden Rogalsky, Janet Ross, Jenny Lapp, Valmy Assam, Tamsin Robson, Stephen Burns, Sophie Noel, NAT chantel, Lance Sampson

Produced by Michael Cloud Duguay
Recorded by Jake Nicoll + his solar-powered Scamper RV at St. George’s Round Church
Engineered by Jake + Dave Grenon
Mixed by Steve Chahley
Mastered by East End Mastering

The album photo comes from the archive of the Halifax Regional Fire Department, and shows the St. George’s round church steeple mid-blaze during the fire of 1994. 

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, FACTOR, the Government of Canada, Canada’s private radio broadcasters, and Ontario Creates.

 

Elsewhere

Olivia Barrett's debut album, Elsewhere, was released yesterday! Elsewhere is full of incredible tunes, most of them originals, realized by Olivia's elegant and impeccable fiddling. The wonderful Adam Dobres (guitar) and Adrian Dolan (mandolin, accordion, piano, recording engineer) feature on this record, with harp appearing on a few tracks too (Sparkle Horse, Last Light, Mountain Blessing)

Monophilia Recording Sessions

Last month I travelled to rural Ontario for a fun few days of recording for an upcoming project composed by Tom Richards! 

Pink Breath

Daughter of a Drum (Aoife McAtamney) released her stunning debut album Pink Breath today! The music on this record is luscious, anthemic, and deeply personal, and it was an honour to contribute harp to a couple of tracks: Heart River, and Youth.

Festival Musique de Chambre du Lac Baker

In early August, I had the good fortune to be part of the 4th edition of the Festival Musique de Chambre Lac Baker! There were beautiful works programmed for harp this year including chamber music by Debussy, Ravel, Vivaldi, Gluck, and new arrangements of folk music by Jaeyoung Chong.

Tunes at No. 9

Roy and Colin (The Narrows) and I played some tunes at No. 9 Coffee Bar in Lunenburg for a back patio wine night.

Gabriella & Ellen at the Trellis Cafe

Gabriella Ciurcovich and I played some dinner music at the Trellis Cafe in Hubbards on the weekend.

photos by Nathaniel Cole and Jamie Kronick

The Mountain Blessing / The Secret Elsewhere

Olivia Barrett just released the first single from her upcoming album! This track features two beautiful original tunes of Olivia's. I contributed some harp sounds to these tunes and Adrian Dolan contributed accordion and production wizardry! Special thanks to Joel Waddell for making some remote tracking possible here in Halifax. Stay tuned for Olivia's full album, coming in September!

Long & McQuade Presentation

Today I hosted a little info session about the harp at the Long & McQuade lesson centre in Halifax!

photo by Jamie Kronick

Pennybrook Row On Album Release Tour

This weekend I was very happy to be part of the launch of Pennybrook's long awaited album Row On! We played launch shows in Broad Cove, West LaHave, and Harbourville. The album is available on bandcamp: 

Festival of Small Halls

This week, The Bombadils were part of PEI's amazing Festival of Small Halls, playing 3 concerts in 3 different PEI venues. 

The Bombadils at Open Book Coffee

The Bombadils played an intimate show on Friday in bookstore and cafe Open Book Coffee! 

Many Worlds at Everyseeker

Many Worlds played its second ever show at Everyseeker Festival last night, sharing the bill with NO HAY BANDA from Montreal.

Scotia Festival of Music Closing Gala

The Scotia Festival of Music's closing gala this year included Ravel's La Valse, with two harps: Karen Rokos and I were the harp section. The concert also featured Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, the Mozart Clarinet Concerto and the Evangelista Piano Concertant, with soloists Dominic Desautels (clarinet) and Louise Bessette (piano).

Studio time

Adrianna Ciccone and I were in the studio this weekend with recording engineer Graeme Campbell. New music coming later this year!

Rutter Requiem with the Kings Chorale

I had the pleasure of playing with the Kings Chorale for the first time this week for a performance of John Rutter's Requiem at Wolfville Baptist Church in the valley. The program consisted of works by all living composers, and included a World Premiere by Joyce Riddell and a Canadian Premiere by Santiago Veros.

Halifax Celtic Festival

The Halifax Celtic Festival was held at Citadel High School this year with performances in the Spatz Theatre. I had a great time playing a short set with the band Delhaven and dancer Elizabeth MacDonald on Saturday evening!

Debussy with SNS

On Thursday night, I was delighted to join first harpist Karen Rokos for a performance of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune with Symphony Nova Scotia, conducted by Holly Mathieson. The concert also featured pianist Philip Chiu in Ravel's G major piano concerto.

Borrowers at Mx3N

This week included the launch of a new band, Borrowers, which played its first show at Radstorm, as part of the awesome Mask Mandatory Music Night (Mx3N). Playing compositions by Andrew MacKelvie, the band was Andrew (saxophone), Ellen (harp), Sam Wilson (guitar), and Casey Thompson (bass).

Canadian Folk Music Awards

Congratulations to the Bombadils who took home Vocal Group of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards in St. John's Newfoundland! I went up with them to play in their showcase at the Ship Pub and got to attend the awards ceremonies and have a blast in St. John's.

St. Patrick's Day at the Carleton

Last night for St. Patrick's Day, a newly assembled pub band provided some classic songs and tunes at the Carleton!

Musical Exorcism

Last week, I was part of a show at Radstorm with a great premise conceived of by Tom Richards - a musical exorcism to "expel the demons from some of our most insidious ear-worms."

New Bombadils Videos

The Bombadils just released seven new videos, completing the Live Visual Album of "Dear Friend"! You can check out the whole visual album here.

The Road to the Junos - Classical Concert

Last night, CBC and the Scotia Festival of Music co-presented a classical concert at the Music Room. The concert was the last a series of shows this week paving the way for the Junos, which are coming to Halifax in March. The concert featured performances by Devin Huang (piano), India Gailey (cello), Jennifer King (piano), LaLa Lee (piano), and myself, and will be broadcast on CBC radio on March 24th as part of "In Concert" hosted by Paolo Pietropaolo.

Blue Monday Cabaret

Last night was Blue Monday Cabaret at the Carleton, a variety show presenting Joni Mitchell's complete Blue Album! This show has been happening since 2020, every two years. Kyle Gillis and I revived our version of River from previous years. The concert was a fundraiser for local mental health support organizations.

Lizard of Pause

Lizard of Pause, a new circus and dance show, had its soft launch last night! The production is a collaboration between producer/performer Leah Skerry and director/choreographer Alyssa Martin of Rock Bottom Movement. I co-composed the music with the incredible Ben Shapiro who took my harp sounds and ran with them!

"Lizard of Pause is rollercoaster of emotions with a surrealist landing pad of dreams so, fasten your seatbelts, loosen up, and get ready to bask in Dorothy, her freaky little dog and their friends.”

Unfathomable Presence

Jeff Reilly’s new harp concerto "Unfathomable Presence" had its first performance last week with Symphony Nova Scotia as part of Open Waters Festival. Many thanks to Jeff for writing such a beautiful piece and trusting me with so much freedom, conductor Karl Hirzer for his excellent leadership and instincts, and to Symphony Nova Scotia for the support and consummate musicianship.

Thanks also to the Open Waters Festival and Artistic Director Lukas Pearse for programming this work and facilitating new and improvised music! 

Photos by Jennifer King and North Window Productions

Now.Here.This.

The film Now.Here.This. was launched this week at Open Waters Festival! The film features new works by six different local composers, performed by mixed ensembles and interspersed with interviews. The film can be viewed here: https://now-here-this.upstreammusic.org. The film is viewed at variable lengths, and each viewing is different, with footage chosen partly at random each time.

Now.Here.This. was directed by Chris Spencer-Lowe and co-produced by Chris and Lukas Pearse, under the umbrella of Upstream Music Association. I was part of the ensemble for India Gailey's piece, "Alaya" and Mohammad Sahraei's piece, "An". The other composers are Alan Syliboy, Sam Wilson, Amy Brandon, and Geordie Haley.

Sensory Accessible Concert with the Bombadils

I was delighted to have another chance to play one of Cecilia Concerts' Sensory Accessible shows at the Central Library, this time with the Bombadils. Thanks to Jennifer King, Anna Plaskett, Cecilia Concerts, the Library, and awesome team of facilitators who make these events possible!