Drake OranwoodPre-order Sing for the East here:
(As announced on Facebook in the East Kingdom group…)
For those who have been following the Sing for the East CD project, we have an update. The CD will be released on Saturday, June 10, and will be available for purchase at Southern Region War Camp.
We will be launching a preorder site this weekend, which will let you reserve copies (or request that they be shipped to your address, starting on the release day). Those who choose to pre-order (helping to offset our production costs) will also get an advance track or two from the album for immediate download (including a special extended track that won’t be on the final CD). Note that all profits from these sales will be donated to the EK Royal Travel Fund.
Many fine bards have given of their time and talents to bring some of the anthems of our kingdom to life for your enjoyment. We look forward to being able to share them with you in this new form.
In service,
The Sing for the East bards
Announcing the Bardic competition for the Wars of the Roses!
The Wars of the Roses were a 30 year conflict fought over who had the legitimate claim to the throne of England.
In the Medieval period, no less than our present day, the people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ruler was crucial to maintaining peace and prosperity.
Your challenge is to bring to the competition a piece on the topic of legitimacy: how it is conveyed, earned, created, or projected (or not), and why that matters (or doesn’t) in the outcome of the story you are telling.
In service,
Drake Oranwood, Baronial Bard, Concordia of the Snows
Yesterday, I had eight performers at my secret basement lair, Studio Oranwood, to record vocal tracks for Sing for the East. (From left: Mistress Dorigen of the Grey Gate, Drake, Mistress Judith Fitzhenry the Uncertain, Master Arden of Icomb, Mistress Linette de Gallardon, Lord Jayme Hume of Berwyk, Lord Martyn de Halliwell, Cedar-San Barefoot, and Mistress Sabine de Kerbriant.)
My Pennsic classes are scheduled.
A how-to primer for new or aspiring bards. Developing a repertoire, finding performance opportunities, seeking mentors and patrons, gaining visibility, becoming part of the bardic community.
Thy Name Is Woman: Elizabethan Men on Women
An exploration, through songs and plays of the period, of the complex and conflicted attitudes English culture held around women and their role during the Elizabethan period.
No, there’s no picture. When I record myself these days, I do it alone. Mostly because logistically it’s so much easier. But I have finished recording the lead vocals and the guitar intro and outro for “We Are the East”, for the Sing for the East album.
This will be my first time I get to have an instrumental credit on one of my recordings. Or any recording, for that matter. How did Red Riding Hood put it in Into the Woods? Oh, right. “Excited and scared…”
The SCA Bardic Arts group on Facebook has been a hive of recent activity, to my great delight. Maybe it’s the late arrival of Spring, I don’t know. But when a bold and eager young bard introduced herself as Charlotte Stark of Æthelmearc, I immediately commented:
(By the way, I am SO going to challenge you to write an amusing song or poem with the refrain “I’m Charlotte Stark of Æthelmearc!” Because you need to have repeated opportunities to say that. It’s delightful.)
I was being tongue-in-cheek, but also serious. And in that spirit, Charlotte answered my morning’s challenge with a full set of lyrics that very evening. I’m sharing them with her permission, and great delight, because in not quite four weeks, but she has composed a tune, recorded it with a lovely sure voice, and posted it on SoundCloud. I’m thrilled to see someone fall in love with bardic like this (she has written at least three songs already that I know of), and if I’m not mistaken we will get at least a taste of her talent at Pennsic this year.
I recently added a song page for my Thomas Campion contrafact “The Binding of Isaac”, which I perform with my son Spencer. Now that it is part of my repertoire (and indeed, one of a handful of songs for which I can actually play the lute part when I perform it, and one of these days hopefully we’ll record that), it deserves a page of its own, independent of the blog post about the assignment from which it originated.
I got a rare treat of off-Broadway theater with the family today. We saw The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, a Scottish immersive theater production performed in a live pub setting at the McKittrick Hotel, the same location (and creative group) as the long-running Sleep No More, the interactive meditation on The Scottish Play.
Prudencia Hart warrants a mention here because it concerns itself with a passionate if over-earnest young academic whose focus is Scottish border ballads, and “Tam Lin” gets not only name-dropped, but becomes intrinsic to the supernatural evolution of the plot. It was wonderful to see the show take swipes at academics who feel the need to analyze and deconstruct folk tales until they have lost all context and feeling, while Prudencia stands as the defender of these tales as art, as pieces of vibrant popular music.
As a Scadian, as a bard, as someone with more than a passing interest in Tam Lin, I was mesmerized. As an American, I was overjoyed to see a postmodern and thoroughly cheeky and creative Scottish take on this subject matter. The cast of five was delightful and committed to both the silly and serious aspects of the story they were telling, and Jessica Hardwick, as Prudencia, was positively spellbinding. The entire ambiance of the thing delighted all three of us, as well as our friends who were happily able to join us. (I must once again acknowledge my debt to, yes, Ellen Kushner, who tipped us off about the show.)
The show is playing for three more weeks. If you have the time and the means, I recommend you run to see it like…(SPOILERS!) the Devil himself is chasing you.
Coming this summer: A brand-new companion CD to the Sing for the East songbook (and the forthcoming Volume II)
New productions of East Kingdom songs by East Kingdom bards:
Featuring guest performances including Ken & Lisa Theriot, and the East’s own Duchess Caoilfionn…
(Cover illumination by Katrusha Skomorokh. Proceeds to go to the EK Royal Travel Fund. Pre-order details will be forthcoming.)
Drake Oranwood