I had the great honour recently, of being taken to Sicily for a week’s holiday with twenty beautiful souls, from all over the world. I worked daily on the first draft of my novel, the Siren Odyssey, which is halfway through its first edit and will be ready to present at the York Writers Festival. I swam in the sea, lay in the sunshine, played sous-chef with children and lapped the wonder of life up, despite the health challenges and profound sadness which lives with me.
Back in London now in a gorgeous little flat. For these last six months and for the first time in two and a half years, I have been given the opportunity to stay put, in one place. After housesitting twenty-four different homes in two years, this feeling of having a ‘home base’ has been a gift in itself. Although I have not been able to take my piano out of storage, nor most of my personal effects, I have felt more grounded and steady on my creative and professional feet.
This sublet situation will change again in five weeks, and if I cant find affordable living space in London then I might pick up and move to the sea. I will try to keep my little music thang going in London, running my singing clubs, even if I move from the big city, for the time-being.
I have tid-bits of exciting happenings, which all add up, and which help me stretch beyond the debilitating depression I too often suffer from:
- I did another Jamie Catto workshop, which explored communication and new ways of being. It certainly helped to re-frame difficult aspects of life.
- I have been invited to sing at the Chelsea Arts Club – which is a thrill!
- I am being taken to The Edinburgh Festival at long last, where I will see Stewart D’Arrietta perform Tom Waits and where I will hopefully find and hear my old friend Antonio Forcione playing.
- I’ve been invited to France again this year…always a joy to visit my creative friends in Paris.
- I’ve also been invited to open a new music cafe in Glastonbury. What an honour that will be
- My choirs bring me such great joy. I run four of them at the moment.
- I have a Music Director course coming up this summer too – ever-learning and growing
For the first time in as long as I can remember, despite ongoing challenges, I am finding the old creative me was merely hibernating.
A new Spring is dawning perhaps…and maybe even a new album recording on its way? I suspect I need to find a place to take my piano from storage first There’s my news this month.
Blessings galore to you all. Keep counting them, no matter what. Life is too short to do otherwise. Musically Yours FREYjA
DAY FIVE: We creatives work hard. Whether we run our Art as a business or no. Writers, painters, musicians…we are constantly practising our craft.
What It Takes: On Stage with Original Songs
DAY SIX: I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations with three different people recently. Hence, this post. For it dawned on me that few people realise what it takes to get on stage in the first place, let alone, what it takes to get back up there after such a long break (over three years). Yes I did the gig at the Ritz for John Guthrie’s OBE Inauguration dinner but that wasn’t really a FREYjA gig because it was jazz standards, not original songs and it was only a trio. I don’t particularly enjoy doing standards any more. I am a songwriter. There are classics I will always love like Nature Boy but I repeat – I am a songwriter.
What does that mean, “Jazz standards”, some of you non-musicians, non-jazzists may ask? Well it means that no matter how many musicians on stage, we all have a shared repertoire we know. You don’t need to rehearse for that. It is part of our DNA a repertoire of about 200 songs which we pull out of our bag. Not only does it take little effort but it costs less to put on such a show. We don’t have to schedule and gather musicians to rehearse, pay for a rehearsal space and so on. We just get on stage and 1, 2, 3 let’s go.
Getting a project like the FREYjA incarnation back on stage is an entirely different matter. These are original songs. They need atmosphere of a different kind.
As many of you know, my life went on a peculiar trajectory recently. I have found myself moving from home to temporary home. I lived on the boat. I looked after friends’ and strangers’ pets. I put my Bosendorfer into storage (that’s some years ago now) and what this means, the peripatetic, ungrounded, floating life, is that I don’t get time to practise my craft. Read More »