Bonfire & Fireworks

While In Montserrat has been a great success, and on that evening we managed to raise nearly EC$4,000 for our efforts to go to the Montserrat Foundation (UK). Guests were treated to an eclectic line-up of musicians and student performers, including Jo who did a brilliant first half of classical repertoire from Schumann and Prokofiev, amongst other works. Filipe did more than just visit Montserrat when he also took to the piano, and both of them were immensely well-received.

Filipe & I revisited our days in Guildhall when we also performed some four-handed works on two pianos, one of which was collaboratively composed during his stay here in Montserrat and the other completely improvised. The MSS steel pan did an amazing debut appearance, playing Buddy Tom and Hold My Hand, and the Montserrat Youth Choir shone as usual with a few amazing soloists standing out in particular.

I will be posting up for photos and videos up here once I get hold of them.

The past fortnight certainly has been particularly busy - apart from planning this recital, I had Filipe and Jo over from London to visit. And to perform as well, of course. But apart from all that, we also went about to take in the sights and sounds of Montserrat, including a bit of diving, venturing into the destroyed capital Plymouth, and catching the transit of Venus across the sun on the MVO helipad.

Being the week of the Queen's diamond jubilee celebrations, Montserrat as a British overseas territory certainly wasn't left out either. There were fireworks and a bonfire last week, a jubilee medal reception for the fire and police servicemen and women, and of course, the recital itself.

Fireworks & bonfire at Little Bay.

Sunset on the evening of the Venus transit.

Filipe & I heading off to dive at Rendezvous Bluff.

The extended beach at Plymouth.

Venturing into the destroyed capital.

At the jubilee medal reception.

And with barely any time for a breather, exam period at MSS quickly approaches. I, however, have managed to somehow squeeze in time to write all my exam papers, and now with that out of the way, I am certainly looking forward to a quick weekend sojourn in Antigua with Jo this Saturday.

Next week, I will be back in London for a job interview. If any prospective applicant for this project placement would like to have a chat with me then about the work being done here, please do get in touch.

Recitals & Rum shops

About a fortnight ago Volpanics put on another gig - a tribute performance of sorts, for two of its players, Caroline & Henry, who will sadly be leaving the island soon. This time it was at People's Place, one of my favourite spots in Montserrat. It's a scenic spot that serves up food and drink overlooking the valley adjacent to Forgathy Hill. And in true Montserratian style, we simply set up right beside the road and 'panned' away, with drivers who were passing by just pulling up and to enjoy a lime with live music.

As part of Caroline and Henry's leaving series of parties, Talus - Montserrat's only rock and roll band - also did a gig right on the helipad of MVO. Talus comprises of MVO employees Henry, Paddy and TC, and they certainly rocked away in style with the Soufrière Hills volcano as their stunning backdrop.

Volpanics and their roadside gig.

Talus on the helipad.

Special guest guitarist?

Last weekend has been especially busy, considering I managed to squeeze in yet another rum shop tour on Saturday. I'm starting to really enjoy the finer points of such tours - cramming onboard a bus with an assortment of instruments whilst traversing the entire length of the island, stopping off at various rum shops for a raucous good time! Think of it as a Monopoly-style pub crawl, only with lots and lots of the aforementioned rum.

The newly-formed MSS pan ensemble has been thriving well so far. The turnout for players has been positive, and at the moment we are working on a couple numbers hoping to be ready for the next concert that I have been planning. As part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, my fiancée Jocelyn Freeman (who just so happens to be visiting) will be giving a solo recital, along with the Montserrat Youth Choir who will also be performing. Filipe Sousa, a very good friend of mine as well as an accomplished pianist, is also visiting next month; he will join me for some four-hand piano pieces, most of which will most likely be rather improvisatory, given our style of working together.

This will also most likely be the last big music event that I will be planning - indeed, I have decided that, while my time here has been immensely well-spent, it is time to hand the baton on when my fixed-term contract finishes on 15 July 2012. Clare Catchpole, from GSMD, who has been assisting with managing this project, has sent out a few feelers to scout for the next possible replacement.

And given my impending departure from the island, I've decided to make the most of my time left by exploring bits of the island which I have left out so far. And only yesterday did I finally make my first visit to the last of the six 'main' beaches of Montserrat - Lime Kiln Bay. The others being Rendezvous Bay, Old Road Bay, Woodlands Beach, Bunkam Bay and Little Bay. There are also a few other beaches such as Foxes Bay and Isles Bay, but they are either more difficult to access or are in the restricted zone. Not that that will be stopping me!

Sunset at Lime Kiln Bay.

And as the end of term slowly approaches (already?!) I will soon be swamped with writing exam papers and planning practical tests for my music students. In the months since January, some of them have indeed displayed some innate musical talent and I am keen to see them do well over the next few weeks. In the meantime, however, planning for the upcoming recital should take up most of my time.

Steel & Pans

Having travelled quite a fair bit for work and performance over the past four years has presented me invaluable opportunities to pick up a wide myriad of different instruments from different cultures and amalgamate them into my performance practice and teaching methods. For example, during my time in Guildhall, SEZENYŪM travelled to Palestine for professional development and creative exchanges with local musicians. There, I fell in love with the darbuka and picked up a bit of playing and technique on that.

More recently, during my stint in Gordonstoun, I was completely enthralled by the bagpipes and picked it up as well. And now, living in the Caribbean, how could I possibly avoid the steel pans! My first foray into arranging for Volpanics has turned out well - we can now crack out a pretty good rendition of Big Spender, which certainly isn't a common tune for steel pans. And riding on that, I have decided to set up a steel pan ensemble for MSS students. However, instead of just focusing on Caribbean classics (and a few indispensible Bob Marley tunes, of course), I will be arranging music less commonly heard on steel pans. What exactly? I'm still mulling over it. But as I'm typing this, Lady Gaga's Born This Way is playing on MFR, and I'm thinking this might be a good one to tackle.

Anyone interested yet? All are welcome!

Veils & Shamrocks

Last week gone has been an ultimately busy week - it was St Patrick's on Saturday, and let me tell you, St. Patrick's really is a big thing in Montserrat! A week-long festival which started last Monday saw myself conducting the secondary school choir for their debut performance, playing with Volpanics in what was my first ever steel pan gig, dance behind a truck loaded with massive speakers moving at half a mile an hour (this is called a jump up!), embark on a rum shop tour, crash a stage where the string band was playing (well, not quite: I just grabbed a pair of shakers and edged in), and eat lots of food. Glorious, Caribbean food!

More pictures of these all to follow. But first, last night was the Emerald Community Singers' annual cabaret performance (as part of St Paddy's festival), and the Chinese folk dance quartet finally had their chance to showcase their moves in complete splendor. This folksong is native of the Xinjiang region in China, where majority of the region's total population adheres to Islam. This lyrics describe a young lady whose beautiful features are covered by a veil, and she is being edged on by the singer to reveal some of her alluring facial features, while he extols her resplendent qualities in song.


This item was performed by Gerren Gerrald, Beth Breuer, Vicky Wilson and Cupid Francis, with Sujue Davis providing artistic advisory and myself playing music man, of course.

Royals & Masquerades

The previous Friday, 2 Mar 2012, was the day of the royal visit by the Earl and Countess of Wessex, who spent a day at Montserrat as part of the The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Tour. This was to be one of the royal couple's stops on their nine-country tour around the Caribbean. This was, of course, big news for the island - weeks of preparation were dedicated during the lead-up to this visit, although I must admit the biggest benefit I received from all this was that all the pot-holes on the road were being filled - albeit only those that were on the 'royal route'.

Prince Eddie and Princess Sophie got off on a busy morning start, after mooring off the coast of Montserrat - an RFA ship which I'm sure has been outfitted for more luxurious guests. Well, better than a luxury yacht, given these times of austerity. Activities amongst their tour included an investiture, the opening of the Little Bay market (which I hear has been 'opened' for what is the sixth time now - every time a royal visit occurs, the market is opened, even though the market is never used on a regular basis), a visit to the MVO and watching a primary school steel orchestra at Blakes football field. I was present at the last event, just to soak up a bit of the royal atmosphere, wave a flag and generally be a good empire subject.

Children welcoming the royal couple.

My MSS students in the masquerade get-up.

The primary school pan orchestra in the background.

There was also a masquerade dance performance presented to the royal couple, something which I gathered seems to be a uniquely Montserratian dance tradition. It is both a ritual and celebratory element of folk music, with dancers donning bright costumes, voluminous adornments, colourful masks and even a whip. It 'whipper' appears to be the 'leader' of the dance, summoning and dismissing different dancers in the ensemble. This dance is accompanied on the fife and drums.

Masquerade dancers performing for the royal couple.

The popular prince.

And after twelve short hours, the earl and countess headed back to their ship before setting off for what I believe was St Kitts, where they would be treated to a somewhat similar programme. Must be hard, the life of a royal!

Balinese kotekan & Scottish reels

And in the blink of an eye, two weeks have passed since my last blog update. Teaching has gone into full swing now, and the response so far from students has been encouragingly positive. I have been planning the work scheme for music to be taught as a subject to the Years 7 to 9 in Montserrat Secondary School, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. If my objective is to expose students here to as varied styles and genres of music as possible (as was originally the idea), then delivering music education through the classroom has certainly achieved that.

The approach here that I have taken has differed quite greatly from the UK - students here have no formal music education in schools, and don't receive regular instrumental lessons, if any at all. This is unlike back home, where you could hold a creative music workshop made up of any type of student participants, and almost all of them would certainly have had music taught to them in the classroom and have had weekly instrumental tuition. This, of course, makes it easy to explain what the concept of kotekan found in Balinese gamelan is all about and attempt to recreate elements of that on their instruments. Over here, however, I've had to start from the very basics of pulse, rhythm, note values and notation before asking them to identify the time signature of a Scottish reel (which went down quite well), for example. And this could have, in my opinion, been only effectively delivered in a classroom setting.

The Year 9s have been having a go at film music, looking into different styles of today's Hollywood composers, differentiating between elements of film music such as motifs, underscoring and scene music, as well as coming up with storyboards of their own before acting scenes out while accompanying them on instruments, live. Given how there is no cinema located on Montserrat (the only one was previously destroyed by the volcano), I was slightly apprehensive about the relevance of this module. But I had nothing to worry, as I later found out that given the prevalence of broadband internet on the island, a lot of my students regular watch films through downloading or streaming (as one does?) them online. Ironically, I get power outages here about twice a week - but the wifi in my house never fails me. This reminds me of the time last summer when I was in Romania leading students to volunteer on a summer school programme at an orphanage in a village somewhere in the middle of Romania - and the village had blazing fast broadband internet, but no running water.

I have made slight progress on the instrumental front. I have managed to unearth approximately 50 recorders from the Ministry of Culture, as well as get another adaptor for the keyboards - that makes it two now. And, adding on to the Virtuoso piano app on my iPad and iPhone, as well as the piano app on my TA's Kindle Fire (bless her - she downloaded a piano app for her tablet to help me out with the 'shortage'), that makes five accessible 'keyboards' in the classroom.

Sir George Martin has just ended his month-long sojourn in Montserrat, which he and Lady Judy embark on every year. They own a property here called Olveston House - a beautiful house that, when not occupied by the Martins in January, is used as a guest house which has hosted the likes of Sting, Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney during their expeditions here to record at AIR Studios.

George & I in Olveston House on the eve of his departure.

On a slightly different note, Montserrat Idol has commenced - yes, even this island has not escaped the television sensation scheme first concocted up by Mr Simon Cowell himself. However, given that there is no television broadcasting station in Montserrat, the only way to watch the competition is to, well, go watch it live yourself. It's held every Saturday evening at this cosy beach bar in Little Bay called Soca Cabana, and the competition is now in it's second year (if I remember correctly). The first prize? Round-trip airfare to Antigua, two-night stay at the Catamaran Hotel in Antigua's Falmouth Harbour, a Blackberry Torch and automatic placement in the finals of the Antigua Idol contest (they have it there too!) for this year.

Also, as inevitable as the sun rises and sets everyday, I have embarked on some steel drums playing myself, having joined a steelpan ensemble on the island called Volpanics (loving the pun here). I've assigned myself to tenor pans duty, only because my limited coordination skills can only allow me to focus when are the notes are one pan instead of being spread out over two or three pans. That, and I just love playing the melody anyway! Will update my progress on here as I, hopefully, improve.