James and Leonard Came to Newport?

Yes indeed both James and Leanard were Live @ Newport last Friday - brought to life by soloists, duos, quartets and choirs from the Newport Fiddle and Folk Club fraternity.  What a great night to celebrate their songs (and for many of us to hear a broader palette than simply Susanne and Carolina in my mind.  No photos to record the night - all too engaged in the listening and socialising ...... so information is all that can be added to the evening (alas in French - Désolé pour les éventuelles erreurs dans ces paragraphes)

Taylor grandit à Chapel Hill (Caroline du Nord) où il joue de la guitare, inspiré par la musique de Woody Guthrie. Taylor poursuit ses études à la Milton Academy dans le Massachusetts où il rencontre Danny Kortchmar (en), avec qui il joue de la musique folk. Il crée alors un groupe avec son frère, Alex, alors dépressif, à qui cette activité a probablement sauvé la vie.
Après avoir obtenu son diplôme, Taylor forme le groupe The Flying Machine avec Danny Kortchmar et Joel O'Brien. Vivant alors à New York, il devient héroïnomane et s'en sort grâce à l'intervention de son père (il a composé plus tard la chanson Jump Up Behind Me, à ce sujet).
Il signe en 1968 avec le label Apple qui distribue son premier album, James Taylor. Son producteur est Peter Asher (en), qui était auparavant membre du groupe Peter and Gordon. Le disque ne se vend pas bien et Taylor est hospitalisé pour cure de désintoxication.
En 1969, sa santé est suffisamment bonne pour pouvoir revenir sur scène au « Troubadour Club » de Los Angeles. Il se produit au festival de folk de Newport le 20 juillet 1969. Il est alors victime d'un accident de moto qui lui brise les deux mains et le met dans l'incapacité de jouer pendant plusieurs mois.

Leonard Norman Cohen, né le 21 septembre 1934 à Montréal (Québec), est un poète, romancier et auteur-compositeur-interprète canadien. Son premier recueil de poésies paraît à Montréal en 1956 et son premier roman en 1963.
Les premières chansons de Cohen (principalement celles de Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1967) sont ancrées dans la musique folk, et chantées avec une voix de baryton. Dans les années 1970, ses influences se multiplient : musique pop, de cabaret, et du monde. Depuis les années 1980, Cohen chante dans un registre typiquement grave (baryton-basse, ou même basse) accompagné de synthétiseurs et de choristes.
Dans tous ses travaux, Cohen reprend souvent les mêmes thèmes : la religion, la solitude, la sexualité et la complexité des relations interpersonnelles. Leonard Cohen assume sa dépression chronique depuis longtemps, et ne se l'est jamais caché, ni ne l'a jamais caché, allant jusqu'à en parler aux journalistes rassemblés à l'occasion de la conférence de presse pour parler de son album, Old Ideas^[1].
La poésie et les chansons de Cohen ont influencé beaucoup d'autres auteurs-compositeurs-interprètes, et on compte à l'heure actuelle plus de 1 500 reprises de ses chansons^[2]. Cohen est introduit au Panthéon de la musique canadienne en 1991, au Panthéon des Auteurs et Compositeurs canadiens en 2006, au Rock and Roll Hall of Fame en 2008. Il est un Compagnon de l'Ordre du Canada (CC) depuis 2003, la plus haute distinction civile canadienne.
L'année 2008 marque son retour sur scène.
Son œuvre poétique est récompensée par le Prix Prince des Asturies des Lettres 2011^[3].

Newport Fiddle and Folk (and Vintage Motorcycle) Club

The Folk Club is very excited to have 2 of our members take part in the Cannonball Run from New York to San Francisco.  Chris Knoop has rebuilt this 1926 Invincible JAP Motorcycle (piece by piece) and made a side car fit for for a Queen (his partner Christine).  Chris is going to present a talk about the journey from start to finish at the Newport Bowls Club this Saturday at 2pm before flying out with his crew next week to take part in the race.  This is not for the feint hearted - lots of riding every day (av 480 kms per day for 18 days) and so the mechanics of the bike will be well and truly tested.  All of us who know Chris have great confidence in the only Newport (and Australian) entry in the race where he will be riding with mostly US teams that are working with much deeper pockets to fund their entries.  All the best Chris and Christine - a safe journey from start to finish and we look forward to following your blog

Newport Bush Orchestra - Term 3 2012

 The Newport Bush Orchestra have the CD launch behind them and now its back to work - playing and learning tunes, and enjoying the best way to spend a Monday night.  These pics show Greg and the NBO at the end of the night after putting a solid couple of hours in for the session.  Oh - also there is the Landsborough 150 coming up in the not too distant future on September 15th.... from the press release '

The night will wrap up with another unique performance by the Newport Bush Orchestra.  This group is bound to get the crowd up on their feet to dance the night away.

The word has spread far and wide.

NBO SESSION 1,2 and 3 TERM 3 23 JULY

All
Just catching up with our blog info has been an effort after the festival. The CD launch has been well accepted, it is a disappointment that a few members could not attend ,being overseas or overworked but we did a good job and had a few guests onstage as well.
I am pleased withe the efforts on the CD and have a number of ideas to carry us forward. Our next big event is the bush dance at Rob and Wendy's place at Landsborough on Sept 21. Can you let me know if you can attend ASAP as we need to organize billets.
At the last 3 sessions we have been working on Sweeping the Snow From the Door, and Wendyanne Waltz . I have posted these on the tunes site as well as the complimentary Sunshine Waltz and Passing Shadows waltz. I plan to do these over the next few months.
There has been great sadness in our little community with the the passing away of Cassie Hammond who was an inaugural member of our group, as was her father, Greg. I remember her as a sweet quiet child who looked on me as a big fat dinosaur but played what I asked her to. Also sad was the passing of Chris Duffy, one of Australia's greatest banjo players. He was 63 many of us knew and admired him. Finally Bruce Williams faced the loss of his step-mother as well.
The next few weeks will be spent trying to round up as many BO members as possible and rehearse our CD tunes. Dave Isom had the idea of us busking on a sat morning with council approval to sell CD's and advertise. We need to get ideas about who, what and where.
grg

Revisioning Newport Workshop - Key Thoughts and Ideas from the Festival

The visioning workshop to imagine living in a greener and cleaner Newport was attended by 25 festival participants. After a brief introduction involving a description of the Transition Town concept and a social exercise to make acquiantances, 3 working groups were formed to quickly brainstorm ideas from the prompting question "if you could wave a magic wand, how would you want Newport to look in 2020, 8 years from now?"

A surprising number of common themes arose after 10 minutes of discussion. Every group wished for less cars, better bike paths, and better public transport. All groups envisaged more edible gardening, including community gardens, street and verge gardens, more fruit and nut trees, and community orchards. Other common desires were the reclaiming of used industrial land for community purpose, less waste generation and more recycling, greater community participation in community centres and local enterprises, more sharing of resources and better work/life balance, and interest in locally generated renewable energy.

After reviewing the thoughts of each group 5 common themes were identified. Participants were then invited to choose their favourite idea for a further 10 minutes of imaginative brainstorming. The themes were Social Life, Local Energy, Local Food, Transport, and Less Waste.

The Social Life group imagined building on local resources and organisations to engage and communicate with more sections of the community, the creation of a tool sharing facility, a local film club and a community newsletter.

The Local Energy group envisaged a local community owned power generator using solar panels on the roofspaces of large community assets with some simple but empowering community financing arrangements.

The Local Food group could see grand designs for community gardens and orchards, street food gardens throughout the town, community shared chooks, water and land sharing, food sharing through weekly markets and swaps, more community picnic spots and even a children's farm that emphasises the source of food.

The Transport group thought through better bicycle usage support and considered greater provision of local services within walking or cycling distances.

The Less Waste group could see community composting facilities, support for local traders to compost their waste, school recycling programs, refunds to encourage recycling, encouragement of greater reuse of resources, and a complete rethink of waste generation, including reductions of packaging and dealing with waste locally.

Transition Hobsons Bay are a grassroots community group inspiring and creating a more sustainable future. The workshop was a fun, interesting further small step along this journey.

Festival photos

We had a huge weekend at the Festival, far too many wonderful events to mention, but there are some great photos on our Facebook page (opens in new window) - check them out!

We Felt The Rhythm!

‘Feel The Rhythm’ Workshop presented by Peter Vadiveloo – 23^rd June

The final workshop for this year’s series was Rhythm/Percussion led by Peter Vadiveloo. Our group of 16 participants was a good mix of male/female, youth/adult, and levels of experience, all gathering for 4 hours to feel the rhythm! And that we did…

The workshop began with hush while Peter demonstrated a sequence of voice, body and instrument percussion. This performance was magnificent, and mystifying… 

Peter then guided us through each action beginning slowly and precisely. By the end of the day we were confidently running through the very sequences that had looked impossible 4 hours earlier.

As you can see by the photos, the beginning of the session required serious concentration.   A few hours later were all so relaxed getting into the rhythm, it was tricky taking a photo without blurring!

Peter provided a vast range of percussion instruments and throughout the workshop we had an opportunity to have a go at a variety of drums, tambourines and shakers.

Peter is a brilliant leader, personable, dynamic and very thorough. Participants left the workshop uplifted, with a more confident and improved understanding of playing rhythm.

A fantastic afternoon - much focus, laughter, enthusiasm and exhilaration.

A number of people commented afterwards that although they’d looked forward to the workshop the afternoon far exceeded their expectations.

 

Peter is running a one-hour workshop at our Newport Folk Festival this weekend.  This workshop will be held on Saturday 7^th July, 1-2pm at the Newport Scout Hall.