Landscapes, friendships, moments, memories: these are all parts of what helps to keep us grounded through shifting times.
They are part and parcel of the things musicians draw on to create, too.
That was certainly the case for Emmanuelle LeBlanc, Pascal Miousse, and Megan Bergeron as they worked on the song Mont-Carmel.
Along with Emmanuelle's twin sister Pastelle LeBlanc, Pascal and Emmanuelle were founders of the band Vishten. Pastelle and Emmamuelle grew up in the Acadian French speaking part of Prince Edward Island. Pascal is from the nearby Magdalen Islands, where French is spoken also.
Pastelle passed away several years ago. She left behind many song fragments and writings. One of the ways Pascal and Emmanuelle, and their longtime friend Megan who joined the band after Pastelle's passing, honor her memory is to take inspiration from these ideas and words to create new works.
Mont-Carmel is one such song. The title comes from the place where the sisters grew up. Emmanuelle has written a fine story of the background of the song and how it came to be. Her story is in in both Acadian French and in English.
The Barra MacNeils - Stewart, Kyle, Sheumas, Lucy, and Boyd - are from Atlantic Canada too, from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. MacNeil is a fairly common name in Nova Scotia, which is one reason the Barra MacNeils honor their heritage by adding the name of the island of Barra in Scotland to their name. So it's also not unusual that an unrelated MacNeil -- Kenzie -- wrote the song about Cape Breton called The Island. Kenzie was involved in theater, musical and otherwise, and wrote The Island as part of the music for a sketch review.
Some years later, the brothers and sister of The Barra MacNeils recorded it. It has become a lasting part of their repertoire. More anthemic in style than Mont-Carmel from Vishten, to be sure. Both songs draw on well observed details of life in Atlantic Canada, though, to connect memory and place.
Friendship and memory connect across place and time, too. Maria Dunn considers that in her song Another Year. Maria is based in Alberta in western Canada, and travels the world with her music. In this song she thinks about the values of long lasting friendship, and about keeping connected through years and miles.
One day, flute player Shannon Heaton was looking out the window of her home near Boston. She saw two cardinals perched on a fence, and then one flew away. Shannon and her husband and musical partner Matt Heaton were friends with Pastelle and Emmanuelle LeBlanc, musicians you met earlier in this story. Shannon had heard of Pastelle's passing not long before she saw the birds. She thought of the sisters and wrote the tune Two Cardinals. Another way of thinking about and sharing friendship across time and place.
Cathie Ryan was thinking about connections, too. Ryan is Irish American, first generation daughter of parents who came to the US from Ireland. She's been living in Ireland for some years. While on a visit to the southwestern US, she found that her Navajo guide was also a musician. That helped open the way for her songwriter's imagination to create the song In My Tribe.
In the song County Down, the singer is missing a loved one who has moved away, and longing for him to return, sharing memories and stories of times and places they both know. Tommy Sands, who comes from County Down in Northern Ireland, wrote the song, as Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, who sings it here, explains as she introduces it. Before setting out on her solo career, Muireann was lead singer with the top Irish band Danu for several years; this is a clip from a concert from that time.
Friendship, landscape, music; they can all be ways to connect and renew perspective. May the creativity of these artists help you do that through these shifting times.
Thank you for staying with us through this journey. Below, you'll find a link that will take you to an article which has a bit more backstory on the series. It also has links to a number of the stories, including ones called Listening for Community, Music for Winter's Changes, and The Geography of Hope.
Kerry Dexter is Music Editor at Wandering Educators.
You may find more of Kerry's work in National Geographic Traveler, Strings, Perceptive Travel, Journey to Scotland, Irish Fireside, and other places, as well as at her own site, Music Road. You can also read her work at Along the Music Road on Substack.