It is now just one day till I launch my 3rd solo CD The Shape Of Things with a piano-solo concert at the Unitarian Church in Dublin. I’ll be following this up with three concerts in the South of England in early October 2010. I am incredibly excited. The tourdates are at the bottom of the blog.
The CD itself is a piano-solo CD recorded two days after the end of the big freeze in January 2010 in St. Peters' Church of Ireland in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. The cover was designed by Keith Mullins using photographs taken by Will O'Connell. It features 11 original compositions, a new composition by long-time collaborator David MacKenzie and a unique interpretation of The Late Traiin by Roesy. Although there was a composed structure to all of the tracks, various parts of some of the music were improvised in the studio.
The idea of a completely instrumental album had been brewing for a while. I’ve always put instrumentals into my live set as the piano and my piano style are such an important part of my sound and I know that people enjoy that side of my playing. Many people had been suggesting that I should record a purely instrumental piano album but I always resisted. I could always hear other instruments in my arrangements and love working with other musicians.
When I was considering recording a follow-up to Asylum Harbour, I spent a day recording piano with Brian Masterson who I’d worked with before with David MacKenzie and on Asylum Harbour itself. We went to Drogheda to record with no preconceptions, but to record whatever happened.
The sound grew organically from the beginning of the session which took place at the tail-end of the big freeze in the middle of January 2010. By the end of the day we had 13 tracks and that was definitely a CD’s worth so we decided to put it out as it was.
Since last years' Making Overtures course and its highly informative session on social networking, I've been trying to refine my online presence, hence this blog and trying to increase updates of the website. Occasional colleague Colin Morris suggested SoundCloud as a way of presenting samplers of my work and I'm really enjoying it. For the first time with this album, you can hear full tracks directly from my website – www.joshjohnston.com – as well as find out concert dates and more information about the music. You can already pre-order the CD directly from this website too. The CD will also be available from I-Tunes, CDBaby.com and various digital download sites across the world from September 25th or thereabouts.
Aside from the CD, my life is busy and far-reaching. I tried my hand at chamber music over the summer working with a young and extremely talented violinist Liz O'Neill and although the partnership didn't end up working out for us it was a major project for me which I greatly enjoyed the challenge of. I realised that I hadn't really learnt any new classical music in about ten years so getting myself back to the stage where I could tackle that sort of repertoire was a big project but a productive enterprise and we created a good sound. Maybe we can try again in the future. I'm not one for ruling things out.
I had the dubious honour of accompanying Miranda Sings at the Dublin Fringe Festival - great fun really and even more of a hoot when faced with the reaction of a real live theatre audience.
My newest go at directing a choir is a 9-piece vocal ensemble that I'm actually singing in (working title Chambrette Ensemble) and we performed in semi-public for the first time a few weeks back to an invited audience at one of our choristers' houses in South County Dublin. Despite premiere nerves, everybody - choir and audience - seemed to enjoy themselves and we're now deep back into work for our 'real' first performance in Dublin at the end of November. Lots of informal performances are being planned too - a film-shoot next week, Busking in October and carol-singing in December. Lots of enjoyment to be had !!! Watch out for us.
With launches and welcomings come departures. This summer our good family friends Kathleen and Andrew moved their family to Vancouver for work reasons much to the dismay of their respective families and this Sunday, good friend and fantastic musician Martin (who played bass on the Galway 09 sessions - still unreleased but which will eventually see the light of day - once the songs get finished) and enjoyed coffee and lunch meetups with me in Simons on South Great Georges Street on a regular basis, travels to Germany to take up residence and a new job. A lot of other colleagues and friends seem to have moved from Ireland this year - I'm wondering whether it's an adventure I'd like to try myself but haven't built up the courage to do it yet - situation in Ireland making it more tempting as the days go by. Strange sense of sadness to see friends moving on which you suddenly realise was last a regular occurence with the last wave of emigration in the 80's but at least we have the Internet and cheaper phone packages so it just makes it more important to have the Internet and Facebook in particular to stay in touch. Bon voyage Martin. The story will never be over.
Hope to see you at one of the gigs or on the road.
The Shape Of Things Live
Saturday 25th September 2010 @ 8pm
Unitarian Church, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2
Tickets €10 available on the door or reserved by e-mail from
pigsmayfly@eircom.net
www.the-listening-room.org
Saturday 2nd October 2010 @ 8pm
Unitarian Chapel, New Road, Brighton, BN1 1UF
Tickets £8 available at the door
www.brightonunitarian.org.uk
Sunday 3rd October 2010 @ 7.30pm
Meadrow Chapel, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 3JB
Tickets £7 available at the door
www.unitariangodalming.org.uk
Sunday October 10th 2010 @ 8pm
Unity Unitarian Church, 277a Upper St., Islington,
London, N1 2TZ (next to the fire station)
Tickets £8 available at the door
http://www.new-unity.org
All the best,
Josh
Friday, September 24, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Round Robins On Wednesday Night
In January, I was phoned up by one of the bookers in Bewleys on Grafton Street in Dublin to say they had had a cancellation and they didn't want to leave the venue empty for a night - did I have any ideas ? Having initially said no to the prospect of trying to drum up a crowd on my own, I remembered a very enjoyable evening I had spent in Roundstone, County Galway listening to a concert presented by the arts festival there and featuring my friend and colleague Roesy, Steve & Joe Wall, Noelie McDonnell and Luka Bloom. They all sat on the stage for the whole concert and took it in turns to sing their own songs. As the gig warmed up, they began to play on each others' songs and each of them truly enjoyed the interaction between them all, and between them and the audience. It was a great night and I wondered if I could organise something like that thereby decreasing pressure on anyone individually to get an audience and on any one person to pay the rent.
I first asked SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift, two fine singer-songwriters and good friends who I have worked with on many occasions and in whose bands I play. Ronan wrote "The Forty Foot" which appears on my CD Asylum Harbour (as sung by him) and Steve co-wrote 3 of the songs on that album too so there was no problem me knowing their songs or them knowing mine. Two days before the gig, Kate McGarrigle died and we played "Mendocino" as a tribute. We finished together with "The Forty Foot" (it only has two chords) and the evening seems to have been thoroughly enjoyed by all.
So much fun that we decided to do it again. It's happening on Wednesday evening (19th May) - again in Bewleys and looks like it's going to be a lot of fun again - this time we've even rehearsed a few covers and taught each other a few of our songs so that we can play on each others' songs with a little less trepidation. We all have new CDs to release in 2010 so there will be a good mix of the old and the new in the setlist and, by the very nature of the evening, the evening will be varied in mood, style and sound giving something for everyone.
The fantastic thing about my life (one of the many fantastic things about my life) is that every morning I get up, I seem to be doing something completely different. Two new beginnings have opened up recently. I have started a 10-piece choir - more a vocal ensemble than anything else. We've settled on the name Chambrette Ensemble after my suggestion (Kitchenette Ensemble - we're smaller than a chamber choir so what was smaller than a chamber ?) was vetoed. We're making baby steps at the moment, just moving from easy stuff to get us singing to more ambitious material but it's a lot of fun - nobody's taking themselves too seriously but entering into the team spirit of the choir with a huge amount of commitment which is very heartening. We're planning on a concert in November which seems like a good timeline to me.
I've also entered the serious learning curve of classical music promotion by working as an assistant to Conor Daly of Nota in bringing the baritone Thomas Hampson to Dublin for a recital at the end of this month. Things are really hotting up now - we're putting the programme to bed and I've never realised that so much went into getting it COMPLETELY right. The whole thing is a big undertaking and we're hoping for a sell-out. It's going to be a great gig.
And my CD is continuing apace. Recorded in January just after the cold snap, the mood of the CD is fitting to that - piano instrumentals, mostly original, somewhat lullaby-like, wintery. I'm very pleased with it. I couldn't release such a wintery album in the summer so it will come out in September (September 24th to be exact) when the days start to get shorter again.
Busy busy me - that's the way I like it.
I first asked SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift, two fine singer-songwriters and good friends who I have worked with on many occasions and in whose bands I play. Ronan wrote "The Forty Foot" which appears on my CD Asylum Harbour (as sung by him) and Steve co-wrote 3 of the songs on that album too so there was no problem me knowing their songs or them knowing mine. Two days before the gig, Kate McGarrigle died and we played "Mendocino" as a tribute. We finished together with "The Forty Foot" (it only has two chords) and the evening seems to have been thoroughly enjoyed by all.
So much fun that we decided to do it again. It's happening on Wednesday evening (19th May) - again in Bewleys and looks like it's going to be a lot of fun again - this time we've even rehearsed a few covers and taught each other a few of our songs so that we can play on each others' songs with a little less trepidation. We all have new CDs to release in 2010 so there will be a good mix of the old and the new in the setlist and, by the very nature of the evening, the evening will be varied in mood, style and sound giving something for everyone.
The fantastic thing about my life (one of the many fantastic things about my life) is that every morning I get up, I seem to be doing something completely different. Two new beginnings have opened up recently. I have started a 10-piece choir - more a vocal ensemble than anything else. We've settled on the name Chambrette Ensemble after my suggestion (Kitchenette Ensemble - we're smaller than a chamber choir so what was smaller than a chamber ?) was vetoed. We're making baby steps at the moment, just moving from easy stuff to get us singing to more ambitious material but it's a lot of fun - nobody's taking themselves too seriously but entering into the team spirit of the choir with a huge amount of commitment which is very heartening. We're planning on a concert in November which seems like a good timeline to me.
I've also entered the serious learning curve of classical music promotion by working as an assistant to Conor Daly of Nota in bringing the baritone Thomas Hampson to Dublin for a recital at the end of this month. Things are really hotting up now - we're putting the programme to bed and I've never realised that so much went into getting it COMPLETELY right. The whole thing is a big undertaking and we're hoping for a sell-out. It's going to be a great gig.
And my CD is continuing apace. Recorded in January just after the cold snap, the mood of the CD is fitting to that - piano instrumentals, mostly original, somewhat lullaby-like, wintery. I'm very pleased with it. I couldn't release such a wintery album in the summer so it will come out in September (September 24th to be exact) when the days start to get shorter again.
Busy busy me - that's the way I like it.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Last time I wrote here, it was snowing . . . . . . .
What a weird year it has been so far - and it's only April.
The prime minister of Great Britain has taken to calling his potential voters bigots and we've had four seasons of weather (and quite extreme seasons at that) in four short months. Nobody has any money and everybody seems to want to blame somebody else for that and all their other problems.
Despite still being a penniless musician, I've just moved out of my parents' house for the first time in 15 years which has proved enormously positive and enormously exciting. It's also spurred on all sorts of other opportunities. I initially went even further than I ended up settling on by going over to London for three weeks which I loved except that I had a reality check and realised that I couldn't stay. I would run out of energy and money within about a month of needing the sort of money staying in a place necessitates. Still, it was a lot of fun to catch up with people, play some of my songs, meet old friends and make new ones, go to the theatre and some gigs, and get to travel on lots of trains. I love trains.
I came back rested and having realised that two bands I was in were both timebombs waiting to happen, I realigned my priorities and have worked steadily on a number of other projects since then. I have decided to release my own third solo CD The Shape Of Things in September. It's an album of lullabies, something I discovered whilst trying to decide the order of tracks. Put it this way, they're extremely effective lullabies. Just don't listen to it while you're driving. Apart from the fact that one of the composers of the tracks I didn't write has been left somewhat upset by my level of improvisation on his tune, I've been getting good feedback from people listening to the pieces - I look forward to playing some gigs around the launch.
I'm also playing with Keith Mullins, SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift. These three guys write, sing and play fantastic music. I have a bit of a split personality - I'm a big music fan and a performer. As a fan, there's nothing more inspiring than the fact that we are in an extremely exciting time for new CDs but that's also a bit intimidating as a performer. It's all part of the challenge. My label - Shandon Records - is going to release Ronan's second CD early next year and Ronan and I are working together to start turning the cogs of self-promotion already. SJ, Ronan and I are doing a Round Robin Gig in Bewleys on 19th May - looking forward to that.
And I've taken to music promotion - working with Conor Daly of Nota, an independent classical music promoter who I've known and sung in choirs in for a long time. He's bringing Thomas Hampson to the National Concert Hall to sing American Artsong with his collaborative partner, German pianist Wolfram Rieger. We're in the throes of writing press releases - a new experience but one I'm enjoying immensely.
And I'm also busy playing accompaniments myself in exams for flautists, violinists, singers and recorder players in various schools and music schools around Dublin. It's hectic but good fun and a great opportunity to meet the professional musicians of tomorrow. Keeps you on your toes.
Possibly the most exciting gig of all was last night when I played piano for a staged reading of a fascinating play "On Religion" by AC Grayling and Mick Gordon. It's quite an intense play but really makes you think and pushes you to question spirituality, religion and faith in your own life and in the world, something that in these very dark days we need to do more than ever.
See you,
jj
The prime minister of Great Britain has taken to calling his potential voters bigots and we've had four seasons of weather (and quite extreme seasons at that) in four short months. Nobody has any money and everybody seems to want to blame somebody else for that and all their other problems.
Despite still being a penniless musician, I've just moved out of my parents' house for the first time in 15 years which has proved enormously positive and enormously exciting. It's also spurred on all sorts of other opportunities. I initially went even further than I ended up settling on by going over to London for three weeks which I loved except that I had a reality check and realised that I couldn't stay. I would run out of energy and money within about a month of needing the sort of money staying in a place necessitates. Still, it was a lot of fun to catch up with people, play some of my songs, meet old friends and make new ones, go to the theatre and some gigs, and get to travel on lots of trains. I love trains.
I came back rested and having realised that two bands I was in were both timebombs waiting to happen, I realigned my priorities and have worked steadily on a number of other projects since then. I have decided to release my own third solo CD The Shape Of Things in September. It's an album of lullabies, something I discovered whilst trying to decide the order of tracks. Put it this way, they're extremely effective lullabies. Just don't listen to it while you're driving. Apart from the fact that one of the composers of the tracks I didn't write has been left somewhat upset by my level of improvisation on his tune, I've been getting good feedback from people listening to the pieces - I look forward to playing some gigs around the launch.
I'm also playing with Keith Mullins, SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift. These three guys write, sing and play fantastic music. I have a bit of a split personality - I'm a big music fan and a performer. As a fan, there's nothing more inspiring than the fact that we are in an extremely exciting time for new CDs but that's also a bit intimidating as a performer. It's all part of the challenge. My label - Shandon Records - is going to release Ronan's second CD early next year and Ronan and I are working together to start turning the cogs of self-promotion already. SJ, Ronan and I are doing a Round Robin Gig in Bewleys on 19th May - looking forward to that.
And I've taken to music promotion - working with Conor Daly of Nota, an independent classical music promoter who I've known and sung in choirs in for a long time. He's bringing Thomas Hampson to the National Concert Hall to sing American Artsong with his collaborative partner, German pianist Wolfram Rieger. We're in the throes of writing press releases - a new experience but one I'm enjoying immensely.
And I'm also busy playing accompaniments myself in exams for flautists, violinists, singers and recorder players in various schools and music schools around Dublin. It's hectic but good fun and a great opportunity to meet the professional musicians of tomorrow. Keeps you on your toes.
Possibly the most exciting gig of all was last night when I played piano for a staged reading of a fascinating play "On Religion" by AC Grayling and Mick Gordon. It's quite an intense play but really makes you think and pushes you to question spirituality, religion and faith in your own life and in the world, something that in these very dark days we need to do more than ever.
See you,
jj
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sharing The Stage With Friends
Now that the snow has removed itself from Dublin City, my thoughts have returned to the small matter of playing music and making a living out of it - hopefully.
To this end, I drove up to Drogheda this last Thursday with recording engineer Brian Masterson for a recording session usiing the Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano in St Peters' Church in the middle of the town. At this session, I managed to stop drooling long enough to re-record the piano tracks for "The Art Of Saving Lives", a band CD which I recorded basic tracks for last August but I also spent a good chunk of the day recording piano solo tracks for a new record of instrumentals which I think will be called "The Shape Of Things". I recorded a wide range of pieces ranging from tunes I wrote at college to tunes composed by me last week to a new David MacKenzie piece composed especially for the session. I think it went very well although I guess I'll know a lot more when I hear the disc of rough mixes that Brian has compiled for me tomorrow. I'd love to put this new collection of tunes out at some stage before the summer although I know better now than to put deadlines on these things. Life has a funny habit of getting in the way.
This Friday on 22nd January, I'm teaming up with regular collaborators SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift to perform a Round Robin concert in Bewleys Cafe Theatre on Grafton Street in Dublin. Regular readers of these missives will know how dear I hold Bewleys Cafe Theatre to my heart but this concert will be very very special - three singer-songwriter musicians on the stage for the whole gig interacting with each other and with the audience, each taking it in turns to sing and play their own songs or personally selected covers. A nice informal gig in the intimate surroundings of one of the nicest places in Dublin to spend an evening. Hope you can make it. If you can't, please feel free to invite other Facebook friends to come on my behalf !!
Then the following week, I'm off to London to have a much-needed break and also to throw some copies of my CD Asylum Harbour around and see if I can earn some new musical or music industry contacts. It's a hard industry to crack but you can't get there if you don't get out there and knock on doors. If you know someone who you think should hear it or have any valuable context or perspective for me, I'd love to hear it before my trip.
In the meantime, Happy New Year - may 2010 bring us all what we wish for and dream of.
All the best,
Josh
To this end, I drove up to Drogheda this last Thursday with recording engineer Brian Masterson for a recording session usiing the Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano in St Peters' Church in the middle of the town. At this session, I managed to stop drooling long enough to re-record the piano tracks for "The Art Of Saving Lives", a band CD which I recorded basic tracks for last August but I also spent a good chunk of the day recording piano solo tracks for a new record of instrumentals which I think will be called "The Shape Of Things". I recorded a wide range of pieces ranging from tunes I wrote at college to tunes composed by me last week to a new David MacKenzie piece composed especially for the session. I think it went very well although I guess I'll know a lot more when I hear the disc of rough mixes that Brian has compiled for me tomorrow. I'd love to put this new collection of tunes out at some stage before the summer although I know better now than to put deadlines on these things. Life has a funny habit of getting in the way.
This Friday on 22nd January, I'm teaming up with regular collaborators SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift to perform a Round Robin concert in Bewleys Cafe Theatre on Grafton Street in Dublin. Regular readers of these missives will know how dear I hold Bewleys Cafe Theatre to my heart but this concert will be very very special - three singer-songwriter musicians on the stage for the whole gig interacting with each other and with the audience, each taking it in turns to sing and play their own songs or personally selected covers. A nice informal gig in the intimate surroundings of one of the nicest places in Dublin to spend an evening. Hope you can make it. If you can't, please feel free to invite other Facebook friends to come on my behalf !!
Then the following week, I'm off to London to have a much-needed break and also to throw some copies of my CD Asylum Harbour around and see if I can earn some new musical or music industry contacts. It's a hard industry to crack but you can't get there if you don't get out there and knock on doors. If you know someone who you think should hear it or have any valuable context or perspective for me, I'd love to hear it before my trip.
In the meantime, Happy New Year - may 2010 bring us all what we wish for and dream of.
All the best,
Josh
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