Two months ago, after releasing my new album, Songs & Stories,Vol 1, I asked Irish composer Craig Cox to listen and offer his thoughts, without any prompting from me. Craig and I have worked together on several projects since I arrived in Ireland in 2012. His response resonated with me, so I will comment on … Read more
For a number of years now, I’ve been convinced (too fervently, in the opinion of some of my friends!) that Lana Del Rey ranks among America’s most challenging and skillful of contemporary wordsmiths: a singer-poet with a unique (and often unsettling) talent for cultural imagining. Stylish, intelligent, irreverent, and vulnerable, her music packs a poetic … Read more
I realised that I really like writing through doing this, and that there’s plenty more to write, but for now here are a few aspects I’d like to share with you. Vision Something I’ve learned, beyond a doubt is how essential it is for any musician, artist or human being to cultivate a vision for … Read more
When a respected and much-loved member of the Irish jazz scene suffered a major illness, the jazz community rallied round to support him in the best way they know – a gala fundraising concert, streaming to audiences all over the globe this Sunday. Phil Ware is one of the Irish jazz’s most celebrated musicians, a … Read more
In Blood, Sex and Death, I Found Her Janet is pregnant and alone. Her boyfriend is god knows where and her dad is having none of it and wants to marry her off to a man of his choosing. She’s having none of that, and wants an abortion. And she’s damned if any man will … Read more
I have nothing to say, and I am saying it. And that is poetry. As I needed it. John Cage ‘Nothing to do, nowhere to be?’ This is the space where the best stuff – the best musical stuff – shows its face, ugly, beautiful or otherwise. At first glance, this appears quite simple but … Read more
I’ve never needed a reason to write a song. There have never been any conscious considerations of failure or success during the process. If anything, I can say that what I discover through writing is that there are endless landscapes of discovery. This feeling has not changed in the eleven years I’ve been writing and … Read more
In a suburban Dublin pub ten men aged sixty and over have gathered in a circle each week to play traditional Irish tunes. I joined this weekly session when I moved back to Dublin and after initial bewilderment was embraced by the group. I was the only woman that had ever joined in the twenty … Read more
One comment I hear most often is: “you are doing so many different things!” Followed by the inevitable question: “aren’t you doing too many different things?” What I detect behind this question is the idea that everyone should concentrate on a single discipline, and bring it to a certain standard of success within a capitalist … Read more
Twelve years ago I was asked to sing a selection of traditional Irish love songs in Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, for the launch of an anthology of Irish love poems. This collection had poems which were written over a period of 1,200 years, between 800 AD and the present era. Whitefriar Street of … Read more