AN DROICHEAD

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CANADIAN MUSIC ARCHIVES
I am again heading 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 this kind of repertoire (hedge school ballads, pride of place songs, etc)  In fact he had 125 songs that he remembered from his childhood, thoughapparently he had neVer sung them his whole life until he retired back to New Brunswick in his 60's.

I would like to find out if this was due to the fact that collectors at the time were mostly looking for Childe ballads, and might have eschewed this kind of repertoire, or if there was some other fators involved in the loss of traditional repertoire - or it's replacement with other types of song. I also hope to learn a good deal more about Angelo Dornan, so I will be looking at some text files as well as listening to more recordings.

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! As some of you know I was having a lot of trouble with my voice and it took much persevering effort to find out what was the matter. It turned out to be a simple enough problem: acid reflux was burning my vocal chords. A simple change in diet has improved the situation enormously - and the project is finally back on track. It will tentatively be called "The Blackest Crow" and should be released Spring of 2008

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.  If you are interested in being informed when it is done please send an e-mailto  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)

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...