49 f
one painting called Magic Circles by Alan Davie, and wrote down all the words that came to me. And when we next met up we dis- tilled them into a narrative. It sort of clarified what the painting meant to us.”
“What we often try to do is keep the lines as simple as possi- ble – not to get carried away with lavish language. With all the tracks, the message is quite straightforward.”
Despite their limited arsenal of instruments, the Twelfth Day sound is remarkably dynamic and expansive. This too is deliberate.
“Sometimes when we’re playing live we realise we’re doing about six things at once; playing in one rhythm, singing in a differ- ent rhythm, playing two things at once and singing. We enjoy the challenge of that.”
“We plan to keep it as just the two of us,” reckons Esther.
“That’s part of the ethos too. We’re a band: two voices, a fiddle and a harp. We’re a quartet really.”
nother quite substantial part of Catriona and Esther’s ethos is epitomised by their international music shar- ing project Routes To Roots. This global exchange of musical traditions will be officially announced in the autumn. But it’s so far seen the duo travel to Que- bec, Malawi and Brazil in search of kindred spirits. Next year they head to Mongolia.
A
“We started to think about the idea that although it can sound radically different, the root of folk music everywhere is the same: sharing, community, identity and tradition. We began think- ing of ways we could meet and collaborate with musicians from different parts of the world, and by the end of an evening sitting in Esther’s flat in Manchester it was decided.
“We would travel to four different countries, each on a differ- ent continent, sharing folk music traditions with the musicians we’d meet, and would write new music using the inspiration we would gather. We never thought we would actually be able to make it happen though. When a funding opportunity came up at the Royal Academy of Music we went for it, and the Deutsche Bank Award in Performance and Composition enabled us to undertake the project… well, the initial stages of it anyway. The plan now is to bring musicians from all four countries over to the UK to perform and record together.”
“And it’s humbling,” says Esther, “because you have to give your ideas and accept other people’s. And be really open to work with others. I think that’s such a joy in music.”
Ah, the dream is real after all. Sometimes. You heard a Twelfth Day track on fRoots 49.
www.twelfthdaymusic.com
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