Seasons are changing just now: winter to spring in the northern hemisphere, summer to autumn in the southern part of the globe.
Climate change brings unexpected happenings to these seasons of change. There are constants and unexpected changes in world order and in personal lives, too.
Music for shifting times is what we decided to call this series back when we began with it. As times continue to shift in unexpected ways, there is music to illuminate, to inspire, and to walk alongside us through these times.
Alison Brown's tune Sun and Water, which is a joining of Here Comes the Sun and The Waters of March, is both refreshing and uplifting. Brown's main instrument is the banjo. She gathered several musical friends to come along on the gentle dance of imagination she leads with the tunes.
You've met Brown's music here before. She is based in Nashville. As well as being an award winning player, composer, and producer, she's the co-founder of Compass Records Group.
It's national banjo month in the United States, so it seems only right to begin with a banjo-led piece of music.
Kris Drever was thinking about what might be learned from nature and changing seasons when he wrote the song Oak, too. Kris comes from Scotland. He wrote the song as part of the Spell Songs project. In that work, musicians with interests and connections to nature take inspiration from the art of Jackie Morris and the words of Robert Macfarlane. The two them appear in the video. Engineer Andy Bell is at work too, alongside the musicians.
In addition to Kris Drever, the Spell Songs musicians are Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, and Jim Molyneux.
Change, what it means and how live with it, was on the mind of Celia Woodsmith as she was writing the song Magic Accident. She considers all the unlikely circumstances that have brought each of us to where we are just now. The spark for the song came from a letter Woodsmith wrote to her future self when she was in her twenties, facing challenges in her music career and grieving the loss of her father. Chance or providence, there's clear eyed optimism and acceptance of life's uncertainties.
Woodsmith sings lead and plays guitar here. She's a member of the band The Della Maes, alongside Kimber Ludiker on fiddle, Avril Smith on lead guitar and harmony vocals, and Vickie Vaughn on bass and harmony vocals. The Della Maes are based in Boston. In order to have Alison Brown produce the project, they traveled to Nashville to record the album for which Magic Accident became the title track. You met Brown's music at the beginning of this story; she sits in on guitar and banjo across the tracks of the album also.
Tommy Sands was thinking about that sort clear-eyed look ahead when he wrote The Music of Healing. Sands comes from County Down in Northern Ireland, which lies right along the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. That's a landscape that has seen more than its share of heartbreak and strife across the years. Sands has written and sung about many parts of that situation. The late Pete Seeger was also known for his songs of social justice. Tommy invited him to join in when he first recorded the song. Pete has passed on, but his legacy of song remains, and Sands continues to speak out and sing out for peace and justice, in Ireland and across the world. In the chorus of The Music of Healing, they sing
Ah, the heart's a wonder,
stronger than the guns of thunder.
Even when we're torn asunder
love will come again
Spring is a time when many think of Ireland. If you are a regular reader of this series, you'll know that the music of Ireland comes up often here across all seasons. There are ideas of hope, good wishes, and looking toward the future in the song Mo Nion O.
Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh (you may know her as founding member of the band Altan) wrote the song in Irish. It's a song of good wishes and hope for a child, or perhaps, for anyone beginning on a journey or making their way through life. Cathie Ryan heard it and had the idea of including lyrics in both Irish and English. With approval of Mairead (and of her daughter Nia, for whom Mairead had written the song), Cathie worked out a translation and a way to put the ideas together.
Maura Shawn Scanlin, from North Carolina, and Conor Hearn, from the Washington DC area, met up in the Boston music scene and formed the duo Rakish. As you might suspect from the name, they play music of Ireland. They also play music from Scotland and other Celtic areas, music from Appalachia, and songs and tunes they each write themselves. This is a song Maura wrote which seems right to draw the threads of hope, connection, community, and nature in this set of songs together. It is called We've Got Our Friends.
Part of what they sing:
We've got our friends
We've got our music
and the promise of a sunrise
to get us through the night
May the work of these musicians be a good companion to you 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.