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Hello! I forgot to post my January blog post here, so here is a little catch-up! New news coming soon.
In January, at the APAP Booking Conference I debuted new songs under the umbrella of my show / residency “the voice is a traveler” – a show of songs that remind us of the importance of border crossing – both literal and metaphorical – and our voice as it viscerally expresses our memories and adaptations. I also sang with Jayme Stone’s Lomax (now ‘Folklife’) Project, and enjoyed lots of esteemed musical friends who shared their musical offerings too.
This begins my year of touring this Folklife record, doing collaborative shows, finishing a solo songs record, and writing large and small scale choral commissions. I sang my favorite concert of the year so far on Feb. 1st, in London, I wove folk and original laments (mostly folk songs from Eastern Europe) between the movements of Orlando di Lasso’s stunning “Lamentations of Jeremiah”. I wandered around the giant Saint John’s Smith Square Church in the middle of London with my banjo and accordion. Crispin Lewis’s Musicall Compass performed the complex, almost jazz-like Renaissance polyphony with musicality and vividness.
I taught two Singing Workshops in England – and so happy to have done that again, as it’s been a little while!
Warmly, Moira
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Still another week to contribute YOUR thoughts about TIME:
I finished my “Time In Our Voices” commission for the mighty Los Angeles Master Chorale – a 5 movement piece exploring our relationship to time through the different stages of life, and the tone of the human voice as an expressive tool across a lifetime. The June 2017 premieres at Walt Disney Concert Hall will include a Sound Design of spoken voices throughout the piece – 100s of phone recordings edited together for a glorious ‘time’ sound quilt. Composer/Recordist/Sound Designer, Charlie Campagna and I have mixed 100s of phone recordings of people of various ages musing about TIME – and how they relate to time across their lives. I’d still love YOUR voice in it – read here to throw in! Due March 1st.
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the voice is a traveler
THE CONCERT
Soul-stirring arrangements of Anglo-Celtic ballads, American spirituals, European folk-laments and sharp, poignant originals that call effortlessly upon the audience to whisper, clap, or sing along. Moira plays unusual, plain-spoken accompaniment on banjo, accordion, body/hand percussion and piano. Collaborators are a cellist or bassist, and multi-instrumentalist bringing percussion, fretted instruments, and harmony vocals. Themes of people crossing borders – literally, as hopeful immigrants, or exiles in mourning, or symbolically, as we each seek belonging and transcendence – are the backbone of this show.
THE RESIDENCY
…is collaboration in your community. Every song in “The Voice Is A Traveler” has fully-realized choral (and/or instrumental) arrangements available in sheet-music. Moira offers assemblies, workshops/residencies and master classes that encompass a truly unique blend of Conservatory training, ethnomusicological grounding and fierce creativity.
Booking: Kathy Kuzniar info@moirasmiley.com
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