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............ Music:........... Music
Bio ........... Current
Projects ...........
Recordings ............
2008 Gigs ............
Links ............
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MUSIC PROJECTS
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ELEMENT CHOIR Since moving to
Toronto, I have been trying to find a musical community of
singers and lately I have been working with an improvisational
choir called the "Element
Choir". Improvisation in many ways is the exact
opposite of traditional singing - but I am enjoying the
stretch, and feel that there are skills I am learning that
will enhance my ability to sing in any genre. Specifically it
trains you how to listen. Listening is one of the most
underrated skills in music, and no-one can possibly get to
much practice ;-) Also it's really a lot of fun!
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DUETS WITH LESLIE BOYD-RYAN My
good friend for many years Leslie and I have started building
a repertoire for performance around Toronto. It moves a little
away from my traditional roots - and it is mostly meant to be
really fun (though in typical style many of the songs are
still about loss and longing) We are tentatively calling
ourselves "Fallen Women", just because of the comic
possibilities (We are Fallen off the wagon, Fallen into
disrepute, Fallen from grace, etc etc ;-)
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UNACCOMPANIED
RECORDING PRODUCED BY KEN
BROWN
I
started this project four years ago and have run into
several snags - but am hoping that this is the year
that it will get finished! I will
keep you posted!
It
will be a selection of some of my favourite songs - some
translations from the Irish in the sean-nós
style (for more on sean-nós click
here
), some repertoire from the
collections of Helen Creighton and Peter Kennedy housed at the
Canadian Museum of Civilization and a couple of Breton songs
in French. My goal, as always, has been to find
interesting songs - songs with unusual melody and lyrics - and
do them in a simple unaccompanied style.
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If
you are interested in being
informed when it is done please send an e-mail to
imagocorvi AT gmail.com (please replace the AT with @)
to hear sample click here:
Old
Grey Sheep (from
the singing of Tomas O Neachtain)
to hear sample click here: Song
of Renvyle (from
the singing of Treasa Ui Chonghaile) |
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EXPERIMENTAL
RECORDING - PRODUCED BY HANI HABASHI
Hani
is an electronic musician, unfamiliar with the world of Irish
music so I have asked him to work with me in the hopes of
bringing a fresh perspective to the music. This is a project
largely for fun, and has no projected completion date. I will
be asking other musical friends from other musical genres to
step in and see if we can't make something that wil make you
listen to the songs a little differently...
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CANADIAN
MUSIC ARCHIVES
I have again been to the Canadian Museum of Civilization to
do some research in the musical archives. I was surprised when
last I was there to find so little of what an Irish singer
would think of as Irish repertoire. Though there are any
number of songs about Ireland, many were written here (and
many more from the Music Hall traditions) The large majority
are Childe ballads, which would have been unusual in an Irish
person's repertoire, though they certainly existed to some
extent. Only Angelo Dornan (who contacted Helen Creighton and
told her if she was looking for songs, he had a few) had a
significant amount of specific Irish repertoire (hedge school, pride of place, etc) In fact he had 125
songs that he remembered from his childhood, though apparently
he had never sung them his whole life until he retired back to
New Brunswick in his 60's.
This
time around I listened to 478 songs and was able to capture
the melodies of about 40 - so that should keep me going for a
while.
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VISIT MY 
PAGE TO HEAR SOME CLIPS
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