Cultural Diversions - visits from World Music artists
Whilst the core purpose of "Changing Corby" is to document the cultural heritage - largely through music and song - of Corby residents from the town's Scottish, Polish, Lativan, and Serbian communities... to whet our appetite for each phase of the project, we also worked with professional artists from each of those countries. Here is some of the material we collected along the way.
Laboratorium Pieśni
On 15th and 16th September 2018, we were delighted to host a series of workshops by Kamila Bigus and Alina Jurczyszyn, two members of Laboratorium Pieśni (Song Laboratory), from Gdansk.
We learned two Polish folk songs with them, "Oj Ty Rzeko" and "A Kiedy", representing an ancient tradition of singing found in areas of rural Poland.
Here is a performance their full group singing "Oj Ty Rzeko".
Gaelic songs from Iona
To start the whole of the "Changing Corby" project, and to get the choir into the right frame of mind, we invited Scottish musician and singer, Mary Ann Kennedy, down from Iona for a weekend of learning song traditional Gaelic repertoire.
Two of the songs she taught the choir, "Tobar, Tobar" and "Faca Sibh", we later performed at the Scottish sharing at the end of the first phase of the project in June 2018.
TOBAR, TOBAR
Tobar, tobar, siolaidh
Tobar, tobar, siolaidh
Nighean rìgh ag òl dibhe
’S na gobhair ag eubhach"
(Well, O well, yield up
Well, O well, yield up
The daughter of a king taking a drink
And the goats bleating)
FACA SIBH MÀIRI NIGH’N ALASDAIR
Faca sibh Màiri nigh’n Alasdair
Faca sibh Màiri nigh’n Sheumais
Faca sibh Màiri nigh’n Alasdair
Bi iad a’ mire ri chèile
Cruinn, geàrr, sgiobalta
Cruinn, sgiobalta, gleusta
Cruinn, geàrr, sgiobalta
Bi iad a’ mire ri chèile
("Did you see Mary, Alasdair’s daughter?
Did you see Mary, James’s daughter?
Did you see Mary, Alasdair’s daughter?
They sport and play together.
Round, trim, neat,
Round, neat, game,
Round, trim, neat,
They sport and play together.")
