Julie Fowlis is a Scottish folk singer and multi-instrumentalist who sings primarily in Scottish Gaelic. Fowlis grew up on North Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, in a gaelic speaking community. Her mother was a Gaelic-speaking islander from a family of fishermen and crofters which originated on the remote island of Heisgeir, while her father hailed […]
The Flash Mob
A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs may be organized via phone, social media or viral emails. The first flash mobs were created in Manhattan […]
Electric Light Orchestra
In 1968, Roy Wood — guitarist, vocalist and songwriter of the Move — had an idea to form a new band that would use violins, cellos, string basses, horns and woodwinds to give their music a classical sound, taking rock music in the direction to “pick up where the Beatles left off”. The orchestral instruments […]
The Gospel Train
It would appear that the connection between vicars and trains (one in which I must admit never to have indulged) goes back a very long way. “The Gospel Train (Get on Board)” is a traditional African American spiritual first published in 1872 as one of the songs of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. A standard gospel […]
Rachel Croft – New Album
I posted about Rachel back in June, when the world was young. She has now produced a new album entitled ‘The North Star’, which she describes as a winter collection. There are nine tracks ranging from traditional carols to Christmas songs and the more esoteric. The album opens with what she describes as a sultry […]
Who’s On First
“Who’s on First?” is a comedy routine made famous by American dou Abbott and Costello. The premise of the sketch is that Abbott is identifying the players on a Baseball team for Costello, but their names and nicknames can be interpreted as non-responsive answers to Costello’s questions. For example, the first baseman is named “Who”; […]
Apocalyptica
Four cellists, Eicca Toppinen, Paavo Lotjonen, Max Lilja, and Antero Manninen formed Apocalyptica in 1993 at Sibelius Acadamy. The band released their debut studio album, Plays Metallica by Four Cellos, in 1996. The album consisted of only Metallica covers. The band was featured on two songs on the Waltari album Space Avenue in 1997. Apocalyptica […]
Barbara Thompson
Last week I posted about Dutch jazz saxophonist Candy Dulfer and it put me in mind of our very own virtuoso of the sax, Barbara Thompson and so today we will sample her music which although played on the same instrument is very different in texture to that of Dulfer. Barbara was born in Oxford […]
Carla Bruni
Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi was born in Turin, Italy. Bruni is legally the daughter of Italian concert pianist Marisa Borini and industrialist and classical composer Alberto Bruni Tedeschi. In 2008, however, Bruni told Vanity Fair that her biological father is Italian-born Brazilian grocery magnate Maurizio Remmert. When Remmert met Marisa Borini at a concert in […]
The Fair Rain
A year or two back when Katy and I were on holiday in Northumberland, we went several times to the theatre in Alnwick. The first night was a live streamed Shakespeare, but sadly the weather was so bad that the signal was lost so we never found out how it ended! However we reurned the […]