Tag Archive | interview

King’s Lynn

Apr11

First, I did an interview recently with blogger Melinda Brasher; you can read it here.

Second, I have another musical connection for you! A fellow grad student, who is an Orthodox Christian, lent me his newly acquired copy of the St. Ambrose Hymnal since he knows I’m interested in hymnody. As far as I understand it, this hymnal collects Western hymns (such as those I might know from my own hymn singing) for use in a particular Orthodox tradition. Because, you know, despite the Schism we still have some theology in common. The other day I was reading the hymnal on the bus, sight reading the melodies in my head, as one does. I came across a hymn whose title I’ve forgotten (I’ve since returned the hymnal) but which was set to the tune King’s Lynn, arranged by Ralph Vaughn Williams (who also arranged Kingsfold). I read the tune and thought it sounded familiar, though the tune name didn’t particularly (have I mentioned I spend a lot of time reading hymnal indices?). As I mulled it over, I wondered if the melody was one of the ones in Vaughn Williams’ Six Studies in English Folksong for cello and piano, which my mother had bought years ago for me to play with my brother accompanying me. So, I investigated, and lo, I was right! The third movement, the Larghetto, is King’s Lynn!

The following is an instrumental arrangement of King’s Lynn:

And this is the corresponding movement in Six Studies in English Folksong:

July News

Jul12

There’s a profile of me in the summer issue of the Swarthmore alumni magazine, which you can check out here. Lunar French and hammered dulcimers!

I’m in Minnesota at the moment. I came home just in time to protest our congressman at the 4th of July parade in my town. We were planning to stand on the parade route in matching purple t-shirts waving Healthcare is a right for all signs, but then word came that our famously absent congressman had not actually shown up to march in the parade despite being listed in the program! So instead we swarmed the street and marched in his place, in front of Keith Ellison and his supporters. I didn’t wake up on the morning of Independence Day expecting to wind up on the evening news, but sometimes it happens. I seem to be making something of a habit of this; several years ago a photo of me protesting our state senator at the 4th of July parade wound up on the front page of the Star Tribune.

Last Saturday I went to the 3rd Minnesota Shenandoah Harmony All-Day singing in Minneapolis. The Shenandoah Harmony is the newest shape note tunebook, sometimes called the wicker book for the color of its cover. I have my own copy, but I don’t know the songs well at all, so I didn’t lead. It was good to see lots of familiar faces, though (someone told me to finish my dissertation quickly so I could get back to writing children’s books), and I got recruited to be the resolutions committee, which meant at the business meeting at the end of the singing I thanked everyone who had helped organize it and “resolved” that we do it again next year. The Shenandoah Harmony has some good stuff in it, including this arrangement of “Hicks’ Farewell” that ends on glorious open fifths!

I’m Back!

Feb22

I passed my dissertation prospectus defense and am now a Candidate in Philosophy or somesuch.

A couple of news items:

  • ChinaInsight, a monthly Minnesota newspaper about Minnesota/U.S.-China relations, ran a profile on me and my books in their February issue.
  • In early February, I had lunch with the 5th grade book club at the Brentwood School near UCLA. I had a delightful time, and there’s a little write-up (with photo) here.

To celebrate my successful defense, I spent the weekend being excessively cultured. On Saturday, my friend Dustin and I went to the UCLA Early Music Ensemble’s winter concert, Half Empty: A Post-Valentine’s Concert. The theme seemed to be depressing love songs. The ensemble was smaller than at the fall concert. Most of the pieces were for a few singers accompanied by vielle or viol, or maybe recorder, or dulcian. A lot of the early (i.e. pre-Renaissance) stuff was not attributed to a particular composer but simply came from some manuscript or codex. The concert featured guest artist Emily Lau, a singer with a gorgeous voice. She told us Francesco Landini, composer of two of the songs on the program, was her favorite composer; I swear I studied him in music listening back in the day, but I can no longer remember any particular works of his.

The program progressed chronologically. We got to Arcadelt’s “Il bianco e dolce cigno,” and to Dowland, and Gibbons. The final song was “I’m Stretched On Your Grave”; the words are a translation of a 17th century Irish text. Emily Lau performed this accompanied by viol and violin, and I thought it was quite beautiful. I could also understand phrases here and there, which was nice after the Gibbons, which might as well not have been in English. Afterwards, I looked up the full text and decided the third verse was, uh, dubious, but I still liked the song enough that Kate Rusby’s version is my new earworm.

On Sunday, I went to the farewell reading at Alias Books, which is, alas, closing. I arrived quite early since I’d come straight from shape note singing, so I had ample time to browse. I wound up buying Edwidge Danticat’s first two books (a novel and a short story collection). Then, while waiting for the reading to begin, I continued reading the copy of Possession I’d bought the last time I was at Alias.

The reading included poems, an excerpt from a novel, and translations (from Polish, Spanish, and Italian). There were a couple of musical acts too, one of which featured a song about a sick pet tortoise who required intensive care in a bathtub. Two of the writers I’d heard at the post-election reading last fall. One of them, Deenah Vollmer, has a particular knack for expressing what I might call, for lack of a better term, millenial angst (from which I am not exempt). Afterwards, I walked home through the rainy night, my backpack full of books.

Interview at Cracking the Cover

Dec14

I did an interview for Cracking the Cover recently. You can read the post or, if you want more, the full Q & A. There’s a fair bit of linguistics and music.

Speaking of, I talked about linguistics and music in my radio interview on MPR last week too! As far as I can tell, the segment isn’t available to listen to online after all, so sorry to those of you who missed it and had hoped to listen to it later! The whole thing is kind of a blur. I think I might’ve tried to debunk the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis on live radio.

 

Hear Me on MPR Tomorrow!

Dec6

I’m going to be interviewed about Wildings on Minnesota Public Radio tomorrow, Wednesday, Dec. 7th, at 10:00am Minnesota time (8:00am Pacific, 11:00am on the East Coast, etc.)! You should be able to listen online here, if you aren’t local to the Twin Cities. And if you miss it, you should also be able to listen to the segment online after the fact. I’ll probably post the link.

Round About Our Coal Fire

Nov23

First, a couple of news items:

Now on to the main event, yet another song connections post! Last Friday I went to the UCLA Early Music Ensemble’s fall concert, which was entitled The City Cries: 300 Years of English Joy and Sorrow. There was Purcell, Dunstable, Byrd, Jenkins, Morley, and…Playford! Playford, publisher of The Dancing Master, a 17th century collection of dances and dance tunes for English country dancing. One of the tunes, performed on violin, viola, and viol, was “Old Simon the King,” and upon hearing it I 1) detected that it was in 9/8 and 2) thought it sounded rather like another English country dance tune I knew.

I thought that tune was “Old Wife Behind the Fire,” but when I looked that up I discovered I was wrong, so I went back to the program for the 42nd Annual English-Scottish Ball, my last folk dance ball at Swarthmore. We had danced to the tune I was thinking of at that ball, and the next morning several of us had it stuck in our heads. The program told me the tune I wanted was “Round About Our Coal Fire” (so I had the bit about fire).

It would seem I’m not imagining things because I uncovered some evidence that the two tunes are related.

The song that has stuck with me most since that concert, however, is Henry VIII’s “Hélas Madame” (which I fancy bears some vague resemblance to my other favorite Henry VIII song, “Pastime With Good Company”). I’ve been enjoying the Québécois early music ensemble Skarazula’s recording.