rev.11/9/11 Web page
problems,
broken links,
etc: DonWade
(at) donwade.us Click on thumbnail to open larger
picture in a new window (or
tab). Close tab or click on original tab to go back to index
page.
Article from The Jambalaya News, Lake
Charles, Louisiana.
Eclectic Company: Christine Cooper At The NY Eisteddfod
By Leslie Berman
The
Welsh are different from us. Consider how they say and spell
the
lilting and soft shushing and trilling sounds of words in their Celtic
language: Popular actor Rhys Ifans name (Welsh-ified from his
birth name Evans) is pronounced Reese EE-fans (appearing now in the
Shakespeare authorship-debunking film Anonymous (and yes, you saw him
first as Hugh Grant’s boorish roommate in Notting Hill), and
internationally renowned bass-baritone opera singer Bryn Terfel’s name
is said ter-VELL. Many consonants are doubled in Welsh, as in
the
names Lloyd and Llewellyn, and doubled consonants may take an entirely
unexpected sound, such as the almost impossible to represent “chthllan”
(try to say the “ch” of Loch and a soft “th” of theme simultaneously
with each other and with the “ll” sound that follows) that’s a vague
approximation of the first syllable of the longest place name in Europe
– Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
(translation: “Saint Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel
near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio of the red cave”)
– the 58-letter town name that can only be abbreviated on maps (as
LlanfairPG), and was coined to attract commercial attention
in
the 19th Century. If you want to hear the name pronounced
correctly, try this link:
http://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/say.php#what.
Like so many things that have been self-consciously made up to
forge a distinct Welsh identity, the revived 12th Century poetry and
singing competition-cum-festival of professional bards, the Eisteddfod
(pronounced eye-STED-fud), has become a source of national pride in the
20th Century, and like a Welsh “American Idol” has kicked up some
prodigious talent, in the last decade proclaiming Bryn Terfel one of
the inductees into the Gorsedd (“throne”) of Bards for services to
Welsh Culture, among dozens of other bright lights. What I
find
really wonderful is that the Gorsedd is a complete fabrication of the
18th Century fraud, forger, trickster and laudanum-addicted Welsh
culture promoter Edward Williams, who styled himself Iolo Morganwg
(YO-lo MORE-gann-IG), and by dint of his genius and charisma convinced
the Welsh “scholars of his own time that it was a totally authentic
institution,” as the National Museum Wales website puts it.
And
I learned much of the above from Welsh-born and bred musician, singer,
storyteller, artist and skeptic Christine Cooper, the most arresting
performer in last week’s intimate Eisteddfod, which is well-produced
these days by the Folk Music Society of New York in a Catskills
resort. This Eisteddfod is not a competition, but rather a
festival of song and dance (eisteddfod essentially means “session,” a
term we know from the Irish Celtic musical tradition meaning “musical
jam,” but which translates roughly from the Welsh as “be seated”), and
features traditional and revivalist musicians of many
cultures.
Cooper played and sang Welsh and English songs and tunes, blues
guitarist Andy Cohen received an award for services to American
traditional music, ballads and sea chanteys of the British Isles and
their American declensions were performed by some of the folk scene’s
favorite sons and daughters of all ages, including my old friend
Heather Wood, and we heard Breton French and Serbian singing, as well
as an all-male family trio performing in Georgian, language of the
former Soviet state in the Caucasus. (I fell in love with the
Georgian all-male polyphonic choirs when I was standing in a fourth
Century stone church listening to the state television chorus singing
Mass and folksongs, in part, because they reminded me of the massive
Welsh choirs I’d heard years before. Try the majestic Rustavi
Choir’s versions of “Odoia” or “Chakrulo” on youtube to get a hint of
what my friend describes as “a human bagpipe” of drones and continuous
full tones in which some singers are pushing out and some singers are
pulling in air so you never hear the breaths. It will blow
your
head off!)
But Cooper, one of the Eisteddfod’s youngest
performers, was definitely the weekend’s standout, squeezing in four
short appearances over a scant 24 hours, on frailing banjo and long
bowed fiddle tones, using live electronic looping as accompaniment to
her unadorned, evocative head voice. Cooper performed songs
like
“Two Sisters,” with its refrain “I’ll be true to my love/if my love
will be true to me” from her 2009 release, Colli’r Eos, which you can
find on myspace.com/ChristineCooperMusic, and “Y fwynlan o serch” from
her new five-song EP, These Dreams Like Trees Are Dark And Twisting,
which you can find from this link on her website,
http://www.christinecooper.info, if you click on the “listen” link in the
middle of the music page, or if you go straight to
http://christinecooper.bandcamp.com.