The Shady Groves

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, w...

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...

I've been listening again to my audiobook of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, discovering yet another layer of literary and soulish beauty within it. This experience has led me to hear my playlist with new ears, evoking images of the valorous Caspian and his crew as I revisit some of my favorites. "Caelum Infinitum" - Michelle Tumes A shimmering, luminous paean to transcendent adventures in the "eternal maritime" (most likely with Narnians on deck!). "The Dream of the Innocent" - Helen Trevillion A tender but dynamic symphonic voyage to an interior realm of lost innocence (where Narnia will always be the homeland of our imaginations). (NOTE: I've shared this before, but I share it now with this new sentiment.) "The Land of Nod" - Natalie Merchant A gentle, bittersweet anthem that reminds me of the aerial flight of the BBC Chronicles of Narnia theme song and which lyrically evokes the wonders of Narnia and innocently...