Catch up time!

We’re back from an amazing whistlestop tour of the North! Starting at Bloxham we visited old friends and went to a sabar workshop on Tuesday. Wednesday we went to Cropredy to see friends and collect some tents we’d used last year to return to the owners and then to look at a narrowboat job for Peter at a lovely place called Stockton near Rugby and had a cuppa with some old friends of Peter’s then stayed the night in a nice little hotel in Rugby which is a surprisingly nice town.

Thursday we arrived for a one night visit with Lee and Leah and had a lovely time with them and the grandchildren then on to Warrington to see Peter’s son Alex! We ate drank and were merry and finally ended up in Liverpool on Sunday with Pa Modou for a barbecue and lovely reunion before finally driving back to Bristol late last night! Phew!! Was really lovely to see so much family and friends in one week. The icing on the cake was my son Daniel surprised us with a visit to Bristol en route to somewhere! This week sees the arrival of my sister from Oz and Modou Diouf from Gambia for his summer tour of sabar workshops all over the country so if you’re interested in having a go or improving your sabar check the pinned post for the schedule here! https://www.facebook.com/groups/502624459805398

Last Few Weeks and Merry Christmas

Hello again – as promised I’m updating my blog a bit more regularly and remembering how it helps me to reflect on what I’ve been up to myself!

Since I last wrote I’ve been up to my usual things such as regular studio sessions – I’ve now got 10 tracks virtually finished for the second album – just have to put the tracks into an order that sounds right  and get the final masters agreed.

I’ve been going to the Percussion Orchestra run by Alphonse Daudet Tuna in Bristol – great fun with people playing all sorts of different percussion instruments.

I had a lovely visit to my daughter while P was away helping to plan Kartong Festival in Gambia.

My lovely daughter and grand-daughter

He was gone for three weeks and I really missed him but got tons done! After visiting my daughter I went down to Suffolk to a great day of sabar drumming, a night in London with an old friend and a couple of nights with my dad and wife in Sussex before finally driving back to Bristol. It was a long road trip but got to see loads of people before the Christmas rush.

In between all this, Paddy (my music partner) and I organised our sixth Electrosonica evening with a great line up of artists and some rather experimental electronic music! Paddy and his partner also held a “Crafternoon” where people made lovely seasonal cards and ate mince pies and mulled wine at their house. Yummy.

Rozaya Hopkins singing with Elegance

Peter’s brother came to stay for a night and exchange presents and we went to the Colston Hall and saw Fily Cissohko play a wonderful lobby concert on kora with an Asian sitar player – beautiful.

Sunday morning we visited Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre near Bristol where we’er members and saw loads of beautiful birds and Sunday afternoon we went to the annual Bristol Gasworks Choir Christmas Concert at St Georges, which has the best acoustics for live unplugged music in Bristol.

Bristol Gasworks Choir

All weekend I couldn’t stop thinking about the poor little children shot to death in Connecticut and being so grateful that here in the UK although things are not perfect – the huge majority of people don’t believe it’s their “right” to be armed to the teeth.

Now it’s the Christmas preparations, shopping, wrapping and cooking with visitors from Sunday 23rd right through to the New Year – so don’t expect to see me here again till 2013!

Happy Christmas and a brilliant 2013 to everyone. Bye for now!

Lions of Africa – WOMAD

I’m just home from an amazing 5 days at WOMAD Festival UK held at Charlton Park annually. The line up of world class musicians was fantastic as ever with the final headliner being Robert Plant performing with the superb Juldeh Camara on riti (African violin) and Justin Adams on electric guitar. He’s still an amazing performer with all the enthusiasm of a young star!

We also saw the peerless Hugh Masakela and wonderful acts from all round the world.

I was lucky to be asked to play a set on the Lizard Stage (a small cafe stage in the fringe of the festival) and it was really a lovely atmosphere – I played a 45 min set to a small but appreciative audience and an old friend of mine sang lovely backing vocals as my keyboard player wasn’t available.

We were at WOMAD working with the All Singing All Dancing workshops with the incredible Lions of Africa, an act formed of several of our good friends from Senegal and Gambia – the pictures are fantastic on my Facebook page.

More pictures here! Lions of Africa

Middle Eastern Weekend and Other News!

What a busy and hectic time it’s been – but brilliant.

The Middle Eastern Weekend was wonderful – I was part of a melody group playing flute and we learned two gorgeous pieces of music as well as having my first ever go at belly dancing which was great fun.

The evening entertainment was fantastic with visiting musicians as well as lovely music from Maren and Chas the event organisers.

Meanwhile, Peter is now back from his extraordinary trip to meet relatives in Russia – quite life changing for him.

Next week we’re off to WOMAD festival and I’m thrilled to have been asked to play a set on one of the side stages called The Lunched Out Lizard Stage.

I’m on track 9 of the new CD and now working on track order and thinking about design for the album cover. Onwards and upwards!

Summer – washed out but still having fun

This summer in the UK is just rain, rain and more rain. It’s rained here almost every day since April.

Despite that, I’ve managed to attend the usual drumming and festival events and this weekend I’m off to a middle-eastern festival in Somerset till Monday to learn Arabic scales on my flute.

I’m really making progress on the second album and have now got 8 tracks virtually finished – you can here versions on my music page at http://iacmusic.com/chandramoon

We’ve had amazing family excitement with Peter finding long lost relatives in Russia and he is at this moment over there being filmed for a Russian TV programme which reunites families. His dad (who died many years ago) and uncle were separated in the war and only now has news re-emerged about the uncle’s whereabouts. How incredible to suddenly discover your family after all these years.

I’m still posting photos on Facebook regularly more than here but will try and put some up here soon.

 

Kartong Festival etc

I’ve been back in the UK for nearly a week now and thankfully it’s been mainly warm and sunny which is always better when you come back from somewhere hot – last year we came back to freezing conditions.

The Kartong Festival was brilliant this year, mainly because for the first time the Kartonkas themselves did most of the pre-planning and organising! This gives us great hope for the future of the festival. They’ll still need some technical help next year – especially with lighting and wiring but they planned all the programme and artists, food for artists, publicity. We helped with providing a stage manager, electrics and ticketing/wristbanding but pretty much everything else was locally run. We’re planning on returning in November to do some training/pre-planning and then not attending next February for the first time as the only way to really make the festival happen without us for the first time – sink or swim but we believe they can swim now!! It will be the eighth year after all!

For the first time, I played at the festival myself – flute with my kora playing friend Moriba Kuyarteh.

Here’s a video of us jamming with some other musicians at Tesito Ecolodge – the sound’s not brilliant but you get the general idea. Thanks to everyone for making it such a great festival this year

Chandra and Moriba at Tesito With Moussa and Chris

Time stretching in Bristol…….!

We’ve been back in Bristol now for a few weeks and it’s as if I never left. It’s funny whatever it is that makes a place feel like “home” but Bristol has that magic for me.

It’s a city like any other with all the good and bad that a city offers but it has the extra dimension of being brilliant for musicians – tons of gigs at every end of the scale from open mics to concerts. Plus it has so much green space and parks and is easy to drive out of into the countryside in minutes.

On Saturday we went to Halesowen near Birmingham to support a sabar drumming workshop (we play the chols which are the bass drums – similar to the use of dunduns with djembe). Here’s a link to a video of one of the tracks the group was learning.

Sabar Workshop

If you go out in Bristol without a plan you can guarantee to find something amazing or interesting to do. This weekend was Brisfest and we went down to the docks on Sunday afternoon and started walking about. We walked all along the river Avon back towards the Centre – we saw amazing Dragon boat racing, we popped into the new M-shed Museum of Bristol (completely free), from the roof terrace we watched down across the river and could hear the music from the festival across the way and had a great day out. In the evening we went to see our friend’s band Boxcar Aldous Huxley (as whacky as their name).

I’ve caught up with friends, been out to dinner, had friends round to dinner, seen my mum had people to stay and twice a week been back in the studio.

I’d been wanting to start my second album for the last couple of years but just couldn’t seem to motivate myself. I’m one of those people who’s a hundred times more productive when I’m busy and haven’t got time for anything – time seems to stretch and I get so much more done. Don’t ask me why or how but it’s just the way I am!!

I even feel like writing my blog again – wow!! Not to mention playing tennis twice a week again.

So……….a very happy bunny indeed.

Bristol

Well, at last we’ve moved back to Bristol.

I haven’t blogged as I’ve been ridiculously busy and also we went away in the van for 10 days in the middle of all the moving! We went on a wonderful round trip starting with 4 days drumming in Suffolk, then walking the North Norfolk coast, on to a nostalgic (for P) trip to Pinchbeck and Spalding in Lincolnshire and then home via Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. What a beautiful country we live in with so much variety of countryside and wildlife as well as pretty villages and interesting towns.

Now it’s time to knuckle down here, sort out the house and for me, be back in touch with old friends and my mother and of course, to get cracking on recording my second album. This weekend a friend’s holding a welcome to Bristol evening tonight and then life back in Bristol will start properly…………………

Here’s a link to some photos of our holiday

PHOTOS

Dombondir and Kartong Festivals

Well at last it’s that time of the year again when I pack up my bags, try and remember everything we have to take, sort out the things we leave behind for a few weeks and fly off to the Gambia to help organise and support the Dombondir and Kartong Festivals.

Dombondir takes place in a beautiful quiet village in the Casamance area of Senegal bringing together amazing music, dance and wrestling in an extraordinary, colourful explosion of joy and culture! This is happening at the end of January closely followed on Feb 11th – 13th by the vibrant Kartong Festival just over the border in the Gambia.

We are very much involved with the organisation of Kartong Festival and gradually encouraging the local people to take more and more of the responsibility for it so that eventually it will hopefully happen whether we’re there or not! This year will be the sixth one so they’ve got lots of experience now.

I always feel a bit nervous going and leaving home for so long (back end of February) but excited at the same time and looking forward to seeing old friends and no doubt making some new ones. The music and dance are just wonderful and I’ll have the chance to play flute with my friend Moriba who plays the Kora (African harp) and hopefully we’ll play a set at Dombondir. We’ll also be having a week of sabar drumming workshops with Modou Diouf at Mama Sanchaba’s too.

We’ve said most of our goodbyes and have only tomorrow left for any last minute panics or shopping then it’s off we go from Birmingham airport early on Tuesday.

I’ll be sending text updates to Twitter regularly which will automatically update my Facebook status even without being able to get to the internet very often and hopefully be able to check my email every week or so but in the meantime goodbye for a while – keep well and I’ll bring back lots of lovely photos in a few weeks time.

Whitstable and France

I’ve had a great couple of weeks since I last posted.

Peter had a job doing some engineering work on a live-on barge and I was invited along to join the trip. We had to move the barge from Nemour just south of Paris to Auxerre, its winter mooring. Pete does the work at the various stops and I just enjoy the ride, help out a bit on board, get to do a bit of steering and generally lounge about. In the evening we ate delicious food cooked by the owners and played cards, drank wine and one night went out for a meal at Joigny.

I’d had a horrible chest infection coming on which exacerbates my asthma so I was feeling pretty ropey at the start of the trip but a few days of having to do very little and fresh air has really sorted me out and I feel almost fully recovered now – though the asthma is a constant nuisance it’s tons better than before the trip.

We broke the outward journey at my daughter’s in Whitstable which was just lovely then took the early morning Norfolk Line ferry from Dover to Dunkerque. We went from the Loigne, to the Seine to the Yonne in four or five days staying at lovely overnight moorings en route. It was crisp and cold in the mornings but sunny and almost warm in the day. Here’s a link to loads of photos if you’re interested!

Click This Link for More PHOTOS