Creating magic

Many people have a treasured copy of ‘The Lost Words’ by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. Last night at Sage Gateshead we saw a performance of ’Spell Songs’, a musical companion piece to ‘The Lost Words’ and it was magical.


Spell Songs
I have known about these songs for a while, as I bought the Spell Songs book with the CD inside as soon as it was published, but I have waited a long time, because of cancellations etc., to actually get to see a performance. It was worth the wait. 

The Spell Songs were written by, and now performed by, members of an amazing group of talented, creative musicians. And if I tell you that two of these are Karine Polwart and Julie Fowlis and a third is Seckou Keita, whom we last saw a few weeks ago playing the kora with the harpist Katrin Finch, you will recognise the calibre of the ensemble. So seven fantastic musicians, all playing several instruments and contributing to the vocals. The harmony of the words, images and music was astonishing. Magic was made indeed. And at the back of the stage throughout sat Jackie Morris - painting. At certain points her painting appeared on the big screen, brush strokes of paint swept across the paper, and before our eyes a fox appeared, an otter appeared, all the while accompanied by music, words. The audience held their breath. 

A fabulous evening. 

My blip is the stage setting and the cover of the Spell Songs book. The CD of the songs is inside the cover and the book describes how the project came about, has the words of the songs and tells about each of the musicians.