I had not expected that life in Toronto would keep sending me across the US border. But securing immigration papers has meant my traveling thrice this past month to Niagara Falls, the land border crossing into Canada closest to Toronto. On a recent trip, I ordered lunch from a food truck run by a man […]
Recent Posts
I will confess off the bat to having committed what I have discovered to a big faux pax here: namely, thinking that a move to Canada would be essentially like moving back to the United States. No, no, no! I have discovered a world of unexpected difference, and of much pride in having a distinct […]
I’ve started playing with two incredible musicians, the Dutch mezzo-soprano, Karin Strobos, and the Belarussian pianist, Hanna Shybayeva. We had already decided to work together when we discovered by chance that each of us had recently created programs of pieces inspired by folk songs. So we joined forces and created a kaleidoscope program of solo, […]
Last year wrapped up with the completion of recording sessions for my CD, “Folk Tunes, Translated”. I won the Prix de Salon from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2016 to record this CD – and since then, it’s been a phenomenal excuse for delving into these different folk music traditions. The fun still continues after […]
What do you do when you aren’t composing? I am not a professional composer in the sense that I make my living with it, I work in a business academy, lecturing in cross-cultural communication. It is a completely different world indeed! In my free time, I like to read poetry, in many languages. Out of […]
The winning submission for an arrangement of Dutch folk songs is by Rolf Straver, a Dutch amateur composer – congratulations Rolf! Rolf made a cello duet titled “All’ombra del Tiglio Verde” (“Under the Green Linden Tree“), using the melodies of two of the songs that I previously posted on this blog: “En er waren d’r twee […]
25 years have now passed since the last broadcast of the Dutch radio presenter, Ate Doornbosch, who spent between 1957 to 1993 criss-crossing the Netherlands, recording men and women singing songs of their lives spent on islands, on farms or in fishing villages. These songs were collected in a 9-CD box set named after the […]
In my last blog, I wrote about the songs I had been listening to from Ate Doornbosch’s ‘Onder de Groene Linden’ collection. Here, I’m posting recordings of four of the songs that I found the most musically-striking. This blog is a first call for participation from you, the reader, or from anyone in your circle […]
Now that spring has broken, it is finally time to complete projects that have lain dormant through the dark days of the year. Here is a video of my trip to a winter solstice ceremony in the middle of the Netherlands last year. The ceremony revolved around the playing of the Midwinterhoorn: a long, curved, […]
I’m starting today with a project that I’ve been dreaming of for the past year. Namely, I’m going to find people who, in this modern age, still play folk music. I want to interview them, find out how they came about to be playing this music, hear what this music means to them, learn the […]