Pinewood Castle

Locals . . .

You won't want to miss this FREE concert at the Oliver Kelley Farm this Saturday July 25th at 7pm. Gates open at 6:30 for picnicking!

Ross Sutter and Laura MacKenzie specialize in Scottish music and family programs, which include Irish, Scottish and English song games. His sweet baritone voice is accompanied by her performance on a dazzling array of wind-powered instruments.

Concerts are held on the front porch of the historic farm house. Visitors can bring picnics, blankets and chairs to set up on the lawn. Drinks and snacks will be for sale. Sponsored by the Friends of the Kelley Farm.

These are the same musicians I loved hearing at the Scottish Ramble. I am ever so happy to have had a hand in bringing them out this way! Hope to see you there!

Music for Lent

The liturgy of the Church in Lent appropriately focuses on silence and chant. At home, however, we have not unplugged the CD player yet, rather, hearing some gems written for Holy Week.

Carlo Gesualdo's motet for Tenebrae is wild and wonderful. As the Prince of Venosa, Gesualdo (1560-1613) possessed his own artistic license and was known for his "undisciplined counterpoint". Although his mother was the niece of Pope Pius IV and his uncle was St. Charles Borromeo he is not remembered for holiness or piety, but rather for murders of his adulterous wife, her lover, an infant son and his father-in-law. His music is both anguished and other-worldly.

A Season of Passion is a 5 CD set that contains a variety of works. Lots of music for the money.

• Disc One - a sampling of Bruckner, Schubert, Bach and Bizet
• Disc Two - Highlights from Handel's Messiah
• Disc Three - Highlight's from Bach's St. John's Passion
• Disc Four - Highlights from Verdi's Requiem with Pavarotti
• Disc Five - Pergolesi's Stabat Mater

Palestrina's Music for Good Friday represents the best of polyphonic Renaissance polyphony. Palestrina (1525-1594) held various positions in Rome beginning as a choirboy at St. Mary Major and moving on to the Sistine Chapel choir, choirmaster of St. John Lateran, choirmaster at St. Mary Major, full-time service to a Cardinal, master of the papal choir at St. Peter's Basilica and a role in the reforming music after the Council of Trent to include polyphony. His music is known to reflect the insights gained as a spiritual disciple of St. Philip Neri.

There Will Be More!

Have you checked out The Days Gone By CD yet? A pianist friend of mine (with whom I used to play music such as the Mozart and Beethoven Piano Quintets) gave it a listen and liked it as much as I hoped she would.

This music is my obsession every October. I listen to the tracks over and over and sing rather loudly in the van. People like me (former musicians with children) need music like this. This is the kind of poetry and music that my soul craves and my children can enjoy  until they are old enough for the depth of Mahler and Brahms.

Don't take my word for it, though try reading these reviews.

I have been marveling at this music so much lately -the perfect combination of instruments, the best-suited vocalists for each style, the meters and keys, the ebb and flow of the songs. I have been longing to know who this Ted Jacobs is and if there will be more CDs in this vein yet to come.

After some googling I finally found this fabulous musician on myspace.com. I signed up just to be able to ask my burning question.

And he replied!

hi tracy -

thank you so much for your kind note. it makes me all kinds of happy to know you are enjoying the music. i sure enjoy making it!

the timing of your note couldn't have been better. i have just purchased the rights to both my cds from the record company that released them 9 years ago. this means i will be starting my own independent label to re-release them. there will be a great website and we (my brother rob and i) are very excited.

in the last few weeks i have received permission to do poems by robert frost, rudyard kipling, and lewis carroll. i've finished 7 songs for a new cd of robert louis stevenson! big fun!

my best to you -
ted jacobs

How exciting! I hope it won't be a long wait!

BTY, he also has A Child's Garden of Songs - all Robert Louis Stevenson. This is the one I start playing when daylight savings time begins. You know, "In winter I get up at night and dress by yellow candlelight. In summer quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day."

Bed in Summer

Way back when I first started blogging I posted about one of our favorite CDs, The Days Gone By. Were you reading then? Did you check it out? Did you happen to find the companion CD titled A Child's Garden of Songs? There are just some books and CDs that are so good I want to tell the whole world about them.

Having no formal training in the art of writing reviews, I am tempted to just say: It's really good. Try it, you'll like it! Actually, that's about what said last October in my post on The Days Gone By! I'll try to think of a few more intelligent things to say this time -

Each spring A Child's Garden of Verses finds it's way to our CD player. When my own children are climbing into bed while the sun casts long shadows and the neighborhood children are still outside I am reminded of the title track, Bed in Summer.

The album features the well loved poems of Robert Louis Stevenson set to the most pleasant and memorable melodies and lilting rhythmic combinations still available in Western music. Each piece is about as perfect as it can be and I am especially fond of My Shadow, The Lamplighter and The Moon.

I love love love everything about this CD from the poems to the musicians (Ted Jacobs and friends), the vocal ranges (singable) to the acoustic instruments used. You might recognize the timbre of the uilleann pipes, djembe, mandolin, accordion, dulcimer and bodhran. The auxillary percussion tracks are crystal clear and every time I hear this CD on our van's sound system I marvel at the recording engineer's expertise. Most of the CDs I listen to in the van must not be mixed as well as this one.

For those mothers who make encourage your children to memorize poetry, particularly the verses of Robert Louis Stevenson, this CD can be a great aid to those children who prefer to sing!

Listening samples are available on the Amazon link and all fourteen reviews give the album five out of five stars.  A Child's Garden of Verses illustrated by Tasha Tudor makes a nice combination for home school poetry studies or as a gift for someone special!

Magic CD

We had not listened to this CD in a long time, so I put it in the CD player for our trip to Mass for the Feast of I.C.  For twenty-five minutes there and twenty-five minutes back the the children were absolutely quiet! Need I say more?