The Shady Groves

Merry Christmas to you all! It is a joy to be able to nestle into my burrow here in this Pensacola winter and reflect on which selections of my favorite Christmas music to share with you. Over the years, I have encountered seasonal music that miraculously combines the qualities of joy, beauty, peacefulness, and celebration simultaneously. These are some highlights that come to mind… Simon and Garfunkel- “Star Carol” : https://youtu.be/OTrp5QmjO5s?si=fj2IzBjA0ANKqwUl This tender little folk carol as performed by the duo Simon and Garfunkel was one of the first recorded Christmas songs I ever remember hearing as a very young child… Its innocent beauty has stayed with me ever since! Eric Tingstad and Nancy Rumbel - The Gift : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA7SPe9JExqip7gsw5XyeQbiRbzcNbIO9&si=OflBGiZyzRYhGRGH While old enough to be a classic, this album is a new friend to me! Its timeless use of acoustic guitar and woodwind instrumentation and gentle contemporary freedom in inter

"The October winds lament around the castle of Dromore ..." and echo in my imagination, continuing to inspire my musical projects and festival offerings in this busy and rewarding Autumn! As you may know, the modern celebration of Halloween descended both from traditions associated with the Celtic festival of Samhain as well as customs from the Christian feast of All Hallows Eve (the Even of All Saints). The following eloquent quote from  Tlachtga: Celtic Fire Festival by John Gilroy describes well the nature of the earlier feast: “The idea that Samhain is a juncture between the two halves of the year saw it acquiring the unique status of being suspended in time - it did not belong to the old year not the new. It could be said that time stood still on this night and the implications of this were immense. During this night the natural order of life was thrown into chaos and the earthly world of the living became hopelessly entangled with the world of the dead. But the world

Fascinating and diverse currents of life experiences and musical flavors have surfaced in the past month! I am eager to share my discoveries and remembrances with you once again... First, a song in honor of August:  This piece creates an intoxicatingly sensuous texture through the use of deeper voices : "August" by the Irish choir Anúna...   When music has taken me to darkly beautiful places... Folk / Folk Rock Maddy Prior- "John Barleycorn" https://youtu.be/DPcmwM04Gy4 I have arranged this timeless English harvest song for my online mountain dulcimer workshops, and it often reappears in my private online lessons! It tells a symbolic story of death and rebirth through the life cycle of the barleycorn, celebrating harvest time and sharing similar themes and motifs with the hymn “Now the Green Blade Rises.” This particular arrangement by Maddy Prior breaks all the rules and has the time of its life doing so! Both hypnotic and playful... Kate Rusby- Life in a Paper B

As the swelter of high summer in Pensacola has drawn me increasingly indoors, I have felt led to revisit a diverse assortment of classics and old favorites as well as to keep newer musical discoveries on repeat! First, for the old gold… Libera I discovered the British boys choir in the 2000s, and while classical crossover is somewhat less of a novelty than it used to be, some beauty is truly timeless… like in the powerful and meditative “Sancte”  https://youtu.be/XpFudAZF1bA The pavane-like quality of the music never fails to comfort me in the depths of my soul. Its Latin lyrics are an invocation of the Holy Spirit; the bridge that begins with a soloist singing “ Creator, mysterium” in a pure boy soprano has often brought a tear to my eye. “Something Sings” is also deeply moving, albeit in a somewhat more haunting way. The lyrics are loosely adapted from a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson called “Music,” which seems to me a meditation on the beauty and goodness of “being” itself, whether it

Greetings, friends! Years ago, I started a blog in which to share some of my favorite musical discoveries. I would like to revive this blog so I can continue to share my finds with more of my musical friends. Here are some gems I have encountered in the intervening years since my last post (with many more to follow, I hope!). Amelia Warner You might know her as the actress who portrayed Lorna Doone in the BBC miniseries of the same name, but she has since retired from acting and has become a film composer. Her works are deeply soothing, minimalist, modern, and even post-modern but in a very classically-inspired and elegant way... On her concept album Visitors , each track is mean to represent different woman who supposedly once dwelt in the same now-abandoned house. Each of the names seems to have symbolic meaning: "Eve" (the first, creation), "Frances" (Hodgson Burnett, perhaps, author of "The Secret Garden and "The Little Princess"), "Heidi&q