Latest news with #Miserere
Irish Post
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Post
Ten Minutes with Sarah Allen of Flook
FOR three decades, Flook have been at the cutting edge of folk music, blending dynamic energy with inventive musicality. Flook's fifth album Sanju was released in May and is available on all digital platforms and on The band also just been awarded prestigious 'Group of the Year' title at the annual TG4 Gradam Ceoil Awards which can be viewed on line at Flute player Sarah Allen took time out to answer our questions What are you up to, Sarah? Right now, I am rushing around preparing for our upcoming Flook tour of Japan. We've been to Japan quite a few times over the years—it's one of our favourite places to tour. The people are so kind and respectful and friendly, and the pace toggles between super calm and super frenetic. It will be great to be back. We called our latest recording Sanju, which very broadly speaking is the Japanese word for 30, as Flook are celebrating our 30th anniversary this year. Which piece of music always sends a shiver down your spine? Allegri's Miserere Which musician or singer has most influenced you? A chance meeting with legendary free improvising jazz drummer John Stevens single-handedly changed the course of my musical life. From there on in everything I had previously learned about music was challenged and reset; it was the starting point of a much more creative and fulfilling musical journey. What's on your smartphone playlist at the minute? I've been listening a lot to Bonny Light Horseman's latest release Keep Me on Your Mind / See You Free - I saw them live at The Roundhouse last Autumn - they were AMAZING! I'm also really enjoying The Charming Smile and the Glorious Life from up and coming band Wesley. The lead singer Jamie is the son of my good friend Al Jones, fiddle player from The Barely Works. Other favourites include Laura Wilkie's new album Vent and Brìghde Chaimbeul's new single Bog an Lochan. What are your family roots in Ireland? My Irish roots are only very distant, from way back in the 1600s when my forefathers on my father's side came from up around where Brian (Finnegan) lives in the Armagh area, before they emigrated to Australia. What is your favourite place in Ireland? I love the bustle of Galway and the wildness of West Cork. What has been your favourite venue? We played with Dreamers' Circus last November at Islington's Union Chapel and will be back there for our own gig this coming November - it's such a beautiful space to play music and to hear music - almost other worldly. Which living person do you most admire? My Dad. The tune Ninety Years Young on our new Flook recording Sanju was written for him, though this year it will be dedicated to my Mum (equally admired) for her big birthday in May this year. Which trait in others do you most admire? Kindness What would be your motto? Peace comes when you realise that everything that's out of control should be out of your mind too. What's the best advice you've ever been given? Always stay curious In terms of inanimate objects, what is your most precious possession? My Granny's wedding ring. It was her one remaining treasured possession and she gave it to me shortly before she died. What's best thing about where you live? The street where I live, on the shabbier side of Hampstead Heath, must be one of the friendliest places in London; everyone looks out for everyone else. Plus we have the Heath across the road with its Lido and swimming ponds. . . . . and the worst? I'm struggling to think of anything I don't like! Who/what is the greatest love of your life? My daughter, Maisy - recently turned 18 and shortly heading off on her own adventures Upcoming gigs 4th June 2025: Music Room at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall LIVERPOOL 5th June 2025: The Met BURY, Gt MANCHESTER 6th June 2025: Brewery Arts KENDAL 7th June 2025: The Reeling GLASGOW 8th June 2025: The Glasshouse GATESHEAD 5th July 2025: Festival of Flutes DERRY See More: Flook, Folk Music, Traditional Music
The Herald Scotland
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
A masterly synthesis of old & new: Review: Perth Festival, Ora Singers
St John's Kirk, Perth The opening concert of this year's Perth Festival of the Arts was a festival debut for the Ora Singers, 18 unaccompanied voices under the direction of Suzi Digby, but the choir made such varied use of the fine acoustic of St John's Kirk they might have been based there. The programme, which drew an excellent first night audience for this year's event, was the now-familiar mix of Renaissance polyphony and contemporary responses to such early music, framed by the Miserere settings of Allegri and Sir James MacMillan. The former began the programme in a transept of the building with most of the choir then processing around the audience while an unseen quartet of voices answered them. Ora Singers conducted by Suzi Digby at St John's Kirk in Perth (Image: free) The theatre of that opening found further echoes throughout the evening, especially a central sequence where male voice plainchant, Alma Redemptoris Mater, preceded a sextet singing Cecilia McDowell's setting of the same text. That mirroring technique also ran through the programme, an Ave Marie by Victoria followed by Mark Simpson's, which is full of arresting chords and interesting rhythms and showcased the bedrock of lower male voices that is a real strength of this ensemble. Among the more familiar Marian Latin words, two settings of the Song of Solomon's Sicut Lilium, from Renaissance France (Antoine Brumel) and by John Barber were more unusual offerings, and they were preceded by Francis Poulenc, whose voice was, as always, singularly distinctive. Another outlier was the recent commission in the programme, An End Without End by Electra Perivolaris, who is based on the Isle of Arran and was mentored in Ayrshire by MacMillan. Her setting of 17th century Scots poet William Drummond was more fragmentary in style, using solo voices, duet, trio and quartet as well as larger ensemble. Read more Digby's direction of these details was light-touch, while she was very old-school in her conducting of works like Palestrina's Assumpta est Maria, which was all the better for her rigorous time-keeping. David Bednall's setting of the same text was another highlight, with ear-catching syncopations and a rich choral climax. The MacMillan, however, could be the only choice to end the concert, its masterly synthesis of old and new in a class of its own, and the point at the evening when the six sopranos of the Ora Singers demonstrated a sectional solidity not always evident earlier.
