Our musical tour of European music continues today with a celebration of the distinctly Celtic music from the Breton region of France. Alan Stivell is a French, Breton and Celtic musician and singer, songwriter, recording artist, and master of the Celtic harp. From the early 1970s, he revived global interest in the Celtic (specifically Breton) […]
Nirvana
Nirvana was an American rock band formed in Aberdeen Washington in 1987. Founded by lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic, the band went through a succession of drummers before recruiting Dave Grohl in 1990. Nirvana’s success popularized alternative rock, and they were often referenced as the figurehead band of Generation X. […]
Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman is an American poet and activist. Her work focuses on issues of oppression, feminism, race and marginalisation, as well as the African diaspora. She is a black Catholic, a member of St. Brigid Catholic Church in her hometown of Los Angeles. Gorman was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate. […]
Jess Breach
Today marks the culmination of this year’s Women’s Six Nations Championship. This year due to Covid restrictions, the sides have played in two groups. Group A – England, Scotland and Italy: Group B – France, Ireland and Wales. The top team from each group will play in the final. The six sides will be in […]
Agnes Obel
Today our musical journey takes us to Denmark. Agnes Obel is a Danish singer, songwriter, and musician. She was born in Copenhagen and learned to play the piano at a very young age. About her learning, she said: “I had a classical piano teacher who told me that I shouldn’t play what I didn’t like. […]
Fado
Today our musical journey around Europe continues with a visit to Portugal to sample the best of Fado. Fado (destiny, fate) is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that “the only reliable information on […]
La Oreja de Van Gogh
La Oreja de Van Gogh (literally The Ear of Van Gogh) is a Spanish pop band from Donostia- San Sebastian. The band was formed under the provisional name Los Sin Nombre (The Nameless) in 1996 by four college students: Xabi San Martín (keyboard), Pablo Benegas (guitar), Álvaro Fuentes (bass guitar) and Haritz Garde (drums). They […]
Camille
Camille Dalmais, better known by her mononym Camille, is a French singer, songwriter and occasional actress. She was born and raised in Paris. As a teenager, she studied ballet and developed an interest in bossa nova music and American stage musicals. She attended the prestigious Lycee International de Saint Germain-en-Laye, where she obtained her baccalaureate […]
This Is Soul
As a teenager I used to play table tennis in the basement of a house in Cheltenham and as we practiced for our youth league games, we would listen to music. Unfortunately we only had one LP. That LP was called ‘This Is Soul’ and we played it to extinction. It from this time that […]
Kyrie Eleison
Kyrie, is a transliteration of the Greek Κύριε, the vocative case of Κύριος (Kyrios), is a common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, also called the Kyrie eleison (ancient Greek: Κύριε, ἐλέησον, –. ‘Lord, have mercy’). The phrase Kýrie, eléison (Greek: Κύριε, ἐλέησον), or one of its equivalents in other languages, is one of […]