Boys and gals and non-binary pals: IT’S MARCH! I think I haven’t uploaded a blog for like A MONTH! I know! A month! That’s a long time. But let me tell you: For me it felt like such a short time. January and February just felt like a week. Mental. Never mind. Here I am, back in the business.
I wasn’t really consistent with the blogs the last few weeks but to be honest there was just a lot of stuff going on. After I came back from the mainland at the beginning of February I went straight into the next busy week, with the residency here in Uist. We had a lot of folk from the mainland coming over and had a very interesting project about sacred gaelic music to work on. At the end of the week we had a concert at Kildonan Museum in South Uist to present what we worked on. I can happily say that I am extremely proud of what we achieved as a group. The four of us interpreted the three different sections in our own way and created one whole piece with three very different movements and feels to the music. From a very sacred and holy slow piece into a very dramatic section and finally a very upbeat and happy part. Very happy with the overall piece!
After that I spent almost two weeks in Josie’s house, because she was on the mainland and someone needed to look after her cat Teasel. Although Teasel is quite distant with people (apart from Josie obviously) she got used to me being there after a week and even stayed in bed with me! The WiFi in the house is not the best which is sometimes a good thing! I spent lots of time playing fiddle and piano and writing tunes, listening to music whilst drinking an awful lot of tea and reminiscing about good times! A well needed two weeks of slow and isolated life after all the hectic of January!
Next up it was back to a rather normal routine! Normal college days, assignments and music were on the agenda. One of my pals is in her final year of uni which means her end of year performance will be a 40 minute recital. Because she is from here, her material is about the music of South Uist! I will accompany her on piano and fiddle in most of the sets and we’ve arranged some great chords and riffs for the sets. It’s going to be a great showcase and I can’t wait. The recital is going to be up in Stornoway at the end of April, with all the other music students and there are lots of other 4th year recitals happening so if you’re around Stornoway 22nd/23rd April come to the An Lanntair for great music! There is also a showcase concert with all the students on the Thursday evening which is open to the public! Details for that can be found in the gigs section.
After that life will be very busy again. I will fly out to Germany after the residency on Friday morning, take the train from the airport in Germany up to Hamburg and then onto the piping workshop! Great two days of tunes and booze and then a rehearsal day in Flensburg on Sunday. After that I’m back home to Föhr for a couple of days and I’ll head out 4 days later for a week in Denmark with my soulmate! I can’t wait! We booked a splendid holiday home near Sonderborg for a week and I’m so excited for this holiday. A whole house (with a whirlpool!), free time, no uni, it’s near the beach and hopefully there will be good weather! Can’t bloody wait! During the holiday we will also have rehearsals for the folkBaltica Festival and our holiday ends with the opening concert of the folkBaltica Festival in Sonderborg. After that we’ll head to Flensburg for a weekend of gigs and life will possibly go back to normal.
Speaking of the folkBaltica Ensemble one of my good friends from the Ensemble is coming to visit in one week! ONE WEEK! So excited! We’re going to work on some material because… we’re doing a gig (or possible more than one) in summer! I invited some pals from Scotland along and we’ll work on some material for the gig in August. I’m very much looking forward to that and at the moment I’m trying to organize a few more gigs at that time, because once my pals have made it all the way here we might as well do another gig with all the material we put together! I realized how much I really love planning and organizing stuff like that! It’s obviously time consuming but really exciting.
At the moment (apart from trying to organize the gigs in the summer) we are busy preparing for our gig with gaelic singing trio SIAN. The three girls from SIAN are coming up next week for their gig in Berneray Hall and we’ll support them! Really cool! I remember hearing a lot of their material online and I was amazed by their harmonies. I saw them live at Tiree Music Festival last year and apart from their normal gig they did an acoustic gig in a tiny tent! Their harmonies were on point and so amazing, you should check them out! They just released their debut album as well, so grab one. Goosebumps guaranteed!
The weather here is still horrible, but I hope now that February is over the weather gods will be a bit nicer and treat us with some sunshine or at least less rain and wind. At least that means I can stay inside, practise tunes and put sets together! Hopefully I will be more consistent with the blogs now that I’ve made it back (fingers crossed)!
Hope yous are all well & all the best folks!
Cherio bye,
Emilia