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.