Ogham Ensemble

Ogham Ensemble is another of the bands I play in, we play music from Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, Britanny, Asturias and Galicia, and Scandinavia. Although not all are represented in this short selection.

These are some recordings of the first gig we had, back in August. That was when the band was about two months old, we're playing much better by now, but I have no newer recordings yet, so I hope to share more stuff soon.

The fourth piece, 'The Dancing Trees', is a four-part reel I composed. The name comes from an image at the window of my parents' house, of trees being shaken mercilessly by really strong winds. The first two parts came to my mind a few weeks after returning home from an amazing trip to Ireland in which I attended many sessions with my brother, and drank copious amounts of Guinness beer and peated whiskey (Yay!). The seed that would grow to become Ogham Ensemble was a duet I had with Ernesto, who plays the pipes and the whistles. And it was when I started playing with him and was reunited with this beautiful music, that I wrote the third and fourth parts of 'The Dancing Trees'. We were then joined by Irene (bodhrán and pipes) and Nabani (fiddle), and the band was complete.

Ogham Ensemble has profiles at Facebook, SoundCloud and YouTube. And a webpage that is still under construction at oghamensemble.com.

I hope you like the music!

Kali Deryav

This is the Demo of my band Kali Deryav. It's a project I'm really excited about, not only because of the music, but also because I'm playing with amazing musicians!

The name of the group means 'Black Sea' in Romani, and we play music from the Balkan peninsula, Turkey and the Caucasus. The Demo has 5 tracks:

· Horo se Igrae is a beautiful Bulgarian song.
· Padjernska Kopanitsa is a composition by me, attempting to imitate a Bulgarian/Macedonian style.
· Valle e Pogradecit is a dance tune from Pogradec, a city on the shores of the Ohrid Lake, in Albania.
· Edinaesetorca is a Kopanitsa (11/8) from Macedonia.
· Perifrona Me Glykia Mou is a traditional Greek song.

I convinced my fellow musicians of the beauty of copyleft, the Demo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License. So, if you enjoy the music, by all means, download them, share them, sell them and do whatever you wish with them. Just don't sue anyone for copyright infringement on a derivative work, and link to us :)

Also, follow us on SoundCloud and like us on Facebook. Cheers!

Mini-drama in a koi pond

While on holiday, my father took some beautiful pictures of koi fish at a pond in the hotel. The pictures inspired the first 4 bars of this little piece, the rest of the music flowed naturally out of it. The piece is light and watery at the beginning and at the end, and it has an über-romantic core. This expressive and dramatic centre is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it's also honest, heartfelt music (from the deepest regions of my tortured soul! lol). I really believe one can mock something, and at the same time, sincerely feel it with passion. This is a little piece that attempts that.

The score and the parts can be downloaded at Scribd, IMSLP or the Internet Archive.



EDIT:
I've become aware of some embarrassing mistakes in the score and in the piano part:

In bar 19 the first note on the left hand of the piano is C natural, the natural mark to prevent confusion with the C sharp in the right hand is missing.

In bar 20, in the piano part, the last note on the bass clef is B flat.

In bar 21, the first chord of the right hand is D flat, E flat, A flat, B flat. The flat symbol for the A is missing.

I'm sorry for any problems caused by this and I'm preparing a new score and parts with all the corrections. At the moment I'm working with the 'Ensamble Nuevo de México' who will perform the piece, I'll publish the revised score after that in case more typos come to light. Sorry again.