CD release re-scheduled to Wednesday at St. Saviour’s Anglican Church
By Contributor
The Anne Lindsay concert, that was to have been held Sunday (March 15) has now been re-scheduled to Wednesday (March 18).
Lindsay – the exuberant fireplug of a session-player-to-the-stars (Led Zeppelin, The Chieftains, Blue Rodeo, James Taylor, Roger Daltrey) whose skills have graced many a stage around the world, adds significantly to the musicality of anyone she supports.
She has also built a formidable career on her own as a musician, composer and vocalist — all showcased brilliantly on her new album, Soloworks.
Nelson audiences can check out Lindsay at the St. Saviour’s Anglican Church (701 Ward St, $15, 7 p.m.).
Soloworks was triggered by life – or, in this case, the deaths of her father, and her musical soul-mate, Oliver Schroer, the loss of which thrust the former Stewed Tomato into music all the more.
A subsequent tour of Italy led her to the tiny, medieval hamlet of San Felice, where she would practice in an old chapel, growing increasingly intoxicated by the building’s acoustics. This grew into a series of acclaimed solo shows, and the genesis of Soloworks.
A visit to Scandinavia following her work in a musical production of the Lord of the Rings found her digging deep into Nordic culture and the fiddle styles which had once moved Schroer.
Together, these experiences formed the backdrop for this intensely personal collection of 13 tracks featuring Anne’s violin, nyckelharpa, vocals – and one piece for cello, played by Amy Laing.
Chapel-tested in Tuscany before they were painstakingly recorded in the rich acoustics of Toronto’s Timothy Eaton Church, these compositions cut to the heart and bone of human emotion.
It is life experience from all corners that fuels Anne — from the exuberance of the Majengo Children’s Home choir leading off “The Dusting Rag”, to the rapturous “Seas Will Rise”, written in and inspired by South Africa in celebration of the human spirit.
“Pilgrimage to Pushkar” and “Dogs in the Hollow” were written in India, an homage to Anne’s studies of Indian classical music with virtuoso Trichy Sankaran. Anne’s Arctic sojourns to Canada’s Nunavut and Finland’s Akaslompolo, give us “The Cold Told A Tale”, a testament to the tenacity of peoples in the far north, lyrically referencing the Nordic epic, The Kalevala. Clearly, music transcends all borders.
Anne’s boundary-hopping ways also reveal themselves in her insatiable interest in music of any stripe – jazz, rock, country, celtic, classical and klezmer. Indeed, the act of playing all music, of deriving joy and fun from having danced this dance around the world is what Soloworks is all about – a major artistic accomplishment, and a personal triumph.
