Saturday, October 01, 2005


The girl was playing an old indian stringed instrument that sounds a bit like a hurdy gurdy meets sitar, with a droning sound. Really beautiful, it acompanied her singing all the way through. She was joined by a harmonium player and a tabla player, they danced in the music with her and she would pass them bits to play with her singing then take them back with a gesture of her left hand. The tabla player went from very insidental into some amazing solos that were a blur of fingers, really amazing. The beat was strong throught without needing to be said, the music just had a strong rhythm that the tabla would play around with like a dolphin at sea. She would draw the sounds she sung with her left hand, often flattening the notes by rotating her hand at the wrist then curling under back towards her then up again. In the first couple of songs she would place each section as it came to the end of the 16 beats or 7 beats (very jazz) by leaning forward and with a hand gesture place the note down into the space between us, like a full stop. The sounds would leave her and dance up into the huge expance of the Lady Chapel, I imagined the sounds like smoke or imps and fairies dancing up into the ceiling and joining the fan vaulting and stone carving for the evening. The audience was made up of the youngest audience I think I've come across at concerts yet - we were still on the young side but a far more diverse mixture, of backgrounds and cultures too, there were quite a few indian people there of course. We came home to find sunflowers in the sink and a the thankyou cards all done. Ellen dropped them round in the afternoon and we were very happy and grateful to her.

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