What sound will emerge when ten mighty women folk singers and musicians from Scotland and England get together for a week on one of the small isles to explore the notion of separation? I'm very excited to find out on my first trip to Eigg (hurray!), which is famed for its myth of the Big Women, and for its magical singing sands, and which has an incredibly vibrant contemporary multi-arts scene of its own. Isle based bass player Jenny Hill is the brains behind the project. She's pulled in a team that includes myself and Eliza Carthy, my splendid harper/singer pal Mary Macmaster, the extraordinarily inventive Kate Young, all three members of award-winning English ensemble Lady Maisery i.e. Hannah James, Hazel Askew and Rowan Rheingans, as well as brilliant guitarist Jenn Butterworth, and fiddler/singer Hannah Read, a New York-based Scot who spent much of her childhood on the Isle of Eigg.
The concepts of separation, independence, unity and solidarity have dominated my life these past two years on a profoundly personal and political level. There's a deep well of stuff in all of this. I cannae wait to dive in!
By the by, collaborative (largely) publicly funded arts projects such as this one now depend upon "online metrics" in articulating their range and impact. Their worth and success is, in part, externally measured and judged by online presence and public responses to it. That's the reality. So, if you're curious to know more about this particular project, and you like the idea of ambitious collaborative exploratory arts initiatives in general (not to mention ones involving women!), you could (if you like!) view a wee "like" on our facebook page (below) as a sort of a politically supportive act.
Thanks.
https://www.facebook.com/songsofseparation
http://www.songsofseparation.co.uk/the-isle-of-eigg/