Saturday 29 August 2015

Tethered Fairy Ring invited to The Ukulele Festival of Wales



What fairies like the most is singing and dancing humming and strumming, giggling and having quite a bit of fun. That's why the ukulele is such a handy little thing to have at your fairy fingertips.

Me and my L'il Ol' ukulele are very excited indeed to have been invited by the organiser of the :-

 Ukulele Festival of Wales 
at Gower Heritage Centre 

... to perform 
The Tethered Fairy Ring 
a Symphonic Poem for Ukulele 

June 25th & 26th 2016



I know it seems like a long way off 
but tickets are selling like fairy cakes! 

So if you'd like to come 
To hum &strum 
Get tickets now
 To join the fun!




Thank you to the lovely  Richi Thomas 
for waving his magic wand and making it so!


Pimp my Fairy Ring

 

Ukuleles are very nifty little instruments especially for fairies with little fingers.

 I know this for sure because, as you know  
I have composed The Tethered Fairy Ring as a poem for the  little strum-tastic with 4 strings. 

So, you can imagine, I was chuffed as fairy cakes when Robert Vi from Men's Sheds sprinkled some of his magic dust on me and gave me my very own ukulele kit to decorate 
so that I could join in with

PIMP MY UKULELE





Now then, I don't want to show off, but I just have to show you what happened when I put on my fairy fingered thinking cap and started paper maché-ing my ukulele kit. It took me a very long time of concentrating very hard to make it ...



T'is rather lovely isn't it.
The music is from the notation that the very lovely Susan Berry did for me.



Me and Susan are winging it over to Lower Normandy in France next week to play the piece and celebrate the publishing of 50 limited edition copies of the sheet music.

The world is full of fairy folk, you know.





Monday 17 August 2015

A Fairy List for France


Once the human had pootled off in her car, the house was completely empty, safe enough for the little fairies to scurry around looking for a pen and paper. After all, even fairies need a pen and paper if they are to write a good long list and for sure, they would need a good long list if they were to take enough things & wings with them for a whole month in the sun.

'I can't find my sunglasses,' the little one giggled with glee, 't'will still be warm in France, even in September. Let's borrow hers'. She'll never notice'



Yes, my fairy friends, t'is the hand of good fortune and no doubt a fair sprinkling of fairy magic, that I find myself contemplating my own list for France. 

When I went out earlier this year, I stayed at an orchard of gites owned by an Artist. When I said that I would like to return for a longer length of time, she asked, 

'Do you do chanting?




And as luck would have it, chanting is precisely what I do, as I have been working on a collection of Mantra through Music and Mindfulness as part of my qualifying as a Sound Therapist this year.


So, I will be staying at the little gite, in the pear orchard, with the french doors overlooking the trees and pansies growing with glee in the brimming window box outside my window, for a whole month!




I can write and play and compose and 'be'
And just think of all that lovely french cake ...


Music, Mindfulness, Orchard & Cake
Who could want for more ...


                 

But then I remembered the little fairies who dance inside The Tethered Fairy Ring longing for the sound of ukulele strings and humming humans. 


and whilst sat next to Susan Berry as she notated my Symphonic Poem,  I wondered about the church in the village near the orchard in Lower Normandy and the wonderful acoustics in there and how  I had imagined Susan and I filling that little space with my ukulele and her harp.



And then my mind shifted and I visualised Susan and I out on the lawn between the pear trees ...


So, Susan is coming to France too!
And her Welsh Harp ...
Oh, and her husband and her son. 

They will stay in the gite next to mine for a week whilst I will be there for a month. 

We are performing The Tethered Fairy Ring in the beautiful little church with the fabulous acoustics, in the village and will no doubt be playing together in the sunshine on the lawn.

Aren't fairies clever little things making all this happen just because they know the sun in France still shines in September. Now then, has anyone seen my sunglasses, I know I put them down somewhere?