Showing posts with label The Tethered Fairy Ring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Tethered Fairy Ring. Show all posts

Saturday, 17 October 2015

The Tethered Fairy Ring LIVE in France


So excited to share with you this little fairy taster of The Tethered Fairy Ring being performed in
St. Quentin les Chardonnets in Lower Normandy, France.

An authentic unedited film of the full 20 minute performance is now available:

Please email cherylbeermusic@gmail.com for details of cost & postage.

We had no funding for this project and paid for all the time, travel, accommodation & publishing ourselves. Many thanks in advance for your support.


Monday, 5 October 2015

A note from a fairy ...


Shhh ... don't tell Cheryl Beer we have jumped on here while she is out of the room.We are the fairies from The Tethered Fairy Ring. 



Cheryl & Susan have put all their fairy time into making the sheet music happen without being paid just because they think it is important to preserve new folk stories and pieces of folk music for future generations.

As you know, it's a tough time for us fairies at the moment and we can't afford to magic the money to pay for their expenses into their bank account. If we could we would. 

Which is why we are asking you to buy one of Cheryl's magical and very special sheet music booklets for £20 earthly pounds ... this covers the postman's wages, the petrol to the post office, paying the printer and the graphic designer for helping Cheryl get her fairy inspired musical notes into the world.



If you would like to have one of these very special booklets of sheet music in your library and be the owner of a beautifully crafted piece of fairy magic, then email:

cherylbeermusic@gmail.com

Thank you ... 

Quick ... she's coming back


The Sheet Music Photo Shoot



How utterly gorgeous to have the sheet music for my Tethered Fairy Ring! With it tucked under my arm I pootled around the orchard taking photographs of it. And why wouldn't you! This was my favourite shot because a very obliging bumble bee did an unwitting photo bomb!



Here are some of the other shots ... lovely apples



Oh and the swing ... 




Seems that Fairy Sheet Music dances everywhere


Time to sit in the sun and drink ... 
apple juice! Well, we are in an orchard


Saturday, 29 August 2015

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?







Monday, 12 January 2015

Fairy Timing



I will be flying over the mountain and through Brechfa forest tomorrow to Susan's house, where will be working on a few 'timing issues' with the notated composition of The Tethered Fairy Ring: A Symphonic Poem. 

Thing is, fairies love numbers so much, that just counting to four all the time seems a bit boring, so they have thrown in the odd extra beat here and there. (wink) 

... And who can blame them with their light footsteps and silk-soft wings, for dancing over the harp strings in quick step


Sunday, 28 December 2014

Fairy Dust & Wishes: Sheet Music Design Ideas


The design for the front cover of my sheet music for The Tethered Fairy Ring will be based on 'The Daffodil Fairy'. This little book was read to me by my Mother when I was small, filled with flower fairies and rhyming couplets, it captured my imagination. Particularly the Daffodil Fairy, as the National flower of Wales and being that the story is based on the West Wales Coastlin, it seems very apt indeed.

But the colour will be faded/aged and look very old as if it were printed in 1965 the year I was born.
A bit like this version of 'In the Bleak Mid- Winter'




Being as I am Fifty years old next year in July, I will also release 50 vinyl singles of the Ukulele Overture itself. 

When I was small it was my dream to make a record and when I prayed to teh fairies to make it so, I did not have MP3's or CD's in my head, how could I? NO, I had little black 45'' singles in my mind's eye.



Now I can be my own fairy, making my childhood dreams come true in my Fiftieth year, so as to make room for a new set of  dreams for the next 50 years!


Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Fairy Friends




Hello fellow fairy friends!
So sorry not to have written for a bit but things have been settling here! 

The Tethered Fairy Ring & I packed up and moved to South Wales so that we could go to University in Cardiff. 

My intention is to develop The Tethered Fairy Ring within my MA Drama specifically looking at how to offer depth within my storytelling, rather than linear experiences. 

I also want to build an interactive experience for the audience so that they are transported into the story. 

So, I have put my Fairy Ring to sleep for a bit and am working on my first adult story called 'Mother Moon' and this will be the basis of my first assessment in January. 

If I use The Fairy Ring for the first assessment then I am not able to use it again and I want it to be the all singing, all dancing finalé to my MA in August/September.

For details of how the development of 'Mother Moon' is going, you can pop over to www.fusioninspire.blogspot.com

Meanwhile, my set has become my furniture in my new pad!





Sunday, 6 October 2013

FREE ADMISSION FOR FAIRIES & ELVES!!


FREE ADMISSION FOR FAIRIES & ELVES!

Yes, that's right! Anyone dressed as a fairy or an elf will get into the National Botanic Garden of Wales for FREE on Sunday 13th October when I will be launching The Tethered Fairy Ring as she leaves port to sail off into her exciting journey ... 

Tips from my friends: 
for those of you who do not usually dress as a fairy!


Sharron Jones: Textile Designer & Artist

All you need is to think like a fairy ...


Love like a fairy



Fly like a fairy

Amanda Rackstraw: Storyteller & Writer

And get your beautiful self over to 

The Great Glasshouse 
at 1.45pm 
on Sunday 13th October!

Fiona Winter: Director of Energy Moves

See you there my lovelies!



Saturday, 28 September 2013

Patchwork Promises




I can hardly contain my excitement as my Tethered Fairy Ring Story Telling Quilt comes together. 

Michelle Williams, bless her heart, has been working tirelessly on pulling all the patches together to make my design a reality.




How exciting!! I am due to pick up my quilt on 9th October in time for you to all come and sit on it at The National Botanic Garden of Wales in The Great Glasshouse on October 13th ... 

See ya there ... you won't be able to miss me, I'll be the woman sitting in the middle of a very beautiful, very big, story telling quilt!

Summer Melody & The Waxcap Wizard



As part of The Tethered Fairy Ring Quilt-a-thon Rachel Peachey very kindly donated her fairy Alaw Haf. Alaw Haf is welsh for Summer Melody. I went to Rachel's home to pick up Summer Melody. She watched over us at the Quilt-a-thon.



I spoke with Bruce Langridge, our Waxcap Wizard & he very kindly has housed Alaw Haf as part of his Fairy Ring Trail at The National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Rachel wouldn't mind me telling you that she has a chronic illness, which means that sometimes she is not able to leave her bed and she made Alaw Haf during this time.

And now she has set her fairy free to be in the beautifiul gardens. I wouldn't mind be a fairy at the Garden myself ... oh hang on! I WILL be!!




On Sunday 13th October, as part of the National Fungi Day celebrations, I'll be telling the Story and playing the music for The Tethered Fairy Ring. It will be the first official showing of the story and music although I have tried it out in other venues. I will formally reflect on the piece for my MA Drama at The Atrium, Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Studies.






I digress! How unlike me ;) lol!

BUT ... after Rachel had donated Alaw Haf, she started to miss her. She wasn't on the landing making her magic happen anymore, keeping Rachel company. It was suggested by storyteller Rachel Auckland, that Rachel Peachey have a photo of her fairy on the stairs. So, I arranged with Michelle Williams of Shelbyart that she print out a picture we had of her, I bought a frame and we put it together to give to Rachel at Shelbyart Community Workshop. Sadly, Rachel wasn't well enough to pick her up, so Michelle very kindly took her to Rachel's house.

What a lovely story. You know, when you cast out a pebble based on giving, it doesn't just skim across the river: rather, it creates ripples that continue onwards ... in this current economic climate it seems to me the politicians have become more than a tad obsessed with cuts, with taking away from the arts, & using this model of giving for The Tethered Fairy Ring Story Telling Quilt has really pulled into question for me the whole nature of 'creative & cultural industry' & community based arts. Something to mull over in lectures this week!


Saturday, 14 September 2013

First Fairy Steps


This is Bessy!
She is the first child to crawl on my beautiful Tethered Fairy Ring Story Quilt!


She absloutely loved all the patches


Talk about consumer led designs!




Then brother & Mum joined in the fun too. 



Can't wait for a circle of children and parents to be sat around my quilt on 13th October for the launch of The Tethered Fairy Ring 
at The Great Glasshouse 
in The National Botanic Garden of Wales 
as part of the celebrations for 
National Fungus Day


The Cobbett Community Quilting Library



Many thanks to Mrs Cobbett from Pembrokeshire who very kindly donated her life time 
collection of quilting books to: 
The Tethered Fairy Ring Quilt-a-thon




To make her collection open to the community 
I asked Shelbyart if they would house
The Cobbett Community Quilting Library 
so that the books can be used 
by volunteers and community groups



Then I made the labels. 

Bob Edwards kindly got them photocopied for us



And Patrick Winter patiently spent the day sticking all the labels into all the books!




Many Thanks to:
Mrs Cobbett
Will Cobbett
NBGW
Shelbyart Community
Bob Edwards
Patrick Winter