A little baroque music at a garden party ...

 

Today was a fun day! I was invited to play baroque music with my friend Baye Hunter, at a garden party on Toronto Island. We were celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Shaw House.

Baye and I have played baroque music together since our kids were small, but sadly I don't have any recordings of us. (We're hardly professional, but we have fun.) In fact, this the first professional photo anyone has ever taken of us. Thank you to Austin Zhao.

Thanks for having us Shaw House! Please note: many thanks to Dawn for lending me her guitar. Usually I would play my classical guitar, (for you musicians wondering why I'm playing baroque with a steel-string acoustic guitar), but I couldn't lug my classical on the subway and ferry to the venue.

See Baye's wonderful art here.

Find more of my music on YouTube. See link at right for Spotify.

Release day for The Crow's Nest, a new instrumental guitar album by Philippa Dowding and Allister Thompson!

 

Today is RELEASE DAY for The Crow's Nest, my latest instrumental guitar album, with musician and editor Allister Thompson.

Listen on Bandcamp now: The Crow's Nest 

This is my third album with Allister, and our first since 2017. These 10 songs are inspired by my guitar heroes like John Fahey, Django Reinhardt and more recently, Adrianne Lenker. 

I love all these tunes, I hope you do, too. If I had to choose a favourite (and tomorrow it may be different), listen to Fahey. 

Or All the Stars.

Or any of them! I have been incredibly lucky in my musical and writerly collaborations with Allister. He has edited 12 of my children's books and counting, and made my music sound so good. Many thank yous, once again, to him.

Also, the lovely cover art for The Crow's Nest is by the wonderful Shawna Daigle, who illustrated all six of my Weird Stories Gone Wrong series of horror stories for kids. Thank you to Shawna, too.

I hope you'll visit Bandcamp, and give our latest album a listen! Enjoy!

Also today, our complete work of 26 songs is released on SPOTIFY: Songs from Birch Island
Beautiful cover art by Baye Hunter.

Includes 3 albums:

Fifth Season (2015)

Birches (2017)

The Crow's Nest (2021)

The Gargoyle Shuffle (single, 2019)

Guitar music for Winter Solstice and a long snowy walk home

Image courtesy artist Baye Hunter

Welcome, Winter Solstice!
Time to curl up and read by the fire, indulge in carb-loading, and open that annual bottle of port.

Also, time to listen to music. Here's a guitar piece I wrote with my editor, Allister Thompson (The Gateless Gate), a few years ago. It celebrates a sleigh ride, or a long, cold walk in the snow, and the return to hearth and home on the darkest day of the year (or perhaps on Christmas Eve).

Listen to WINTER free. Enjoy! 

More Posts about 
MUSIC on this BLOG

Moonlight, for loss and love

Birches in Summer, paper collage, by Baye Hunter
www.bayehunter.com

This week reminds me that my lovely sister-in-law has been gone for almost two years now. It's gone so quickly, and so slowly too.

Here is the song I wrote for her, this time last summer: Moonlight

I hope you give a listen and remember those you've loved. If you've ever wanted to hear me sing (and channel my inner hippie), now's your chance!

Many thanks to my editor, Allister Thompson, who sings with me and added all the other lovely instruments to the track.

Here is Allister's Bandcamp page (he's a wonderful editor and a fantastic musician).

If you'd like to hear the entire album, (with thanks) you can download it free or pay whatever you like: Birches. 

All posts on this BLOG about BIRCHES

Mountains of Madness on the Free Music Archive Playlist

Birches in Summer, by Baye Hunter. Paper collage.

Been away in the wilds of Ontario all week, without wifi or my computer. 

Came home to this lovely surprise: my acoustic guitar piece, Mountains of Madness, was selected as part of the Listening Party Playlist this week on the Free Music Archive.

HOW COOL! Thank you!

Here's the complete Playlist Link: 
Free Music Archive Listening Party, "Mostly Unhyphenated Folk", Vol. 57, July 16/2018. 

I love that this week's selections are mostly by female musicians. I ALSO love the cover for the playlist appears to be our cover for Birches, the beautiful art is by my friend (and flute and guitar duet partner), Baye Hunter.

"Mountains of Madness" was of course inspired by the H. P. Lovecraft story of the same name, which I read at the suggestion of my editor, Allister Thompson, a few years ago. I wrote the song after reading that chilling ending, then Allister added his own musical genius to it (that's his voice screaming) and produced it on the album Birches, our second musical collaboration, from October 2017.

You can also listen and pay what you wish on Bandcamp, if you want to throw some money at us (with our thanks)! Hope you give a listen to the playlist and enjoy some tunes!

More about BIRCHES on this blog:
Videos using BIRCHES
Music with Allister Thompson
Fifth Season, Philippa Dowding and Allister Thompson, October 2015

Sequined Mountain Ladies

Birches in Summer, by Baye Hunter www.bayehunter.com

I do two things reasonably well in life. One is write books, the other is play guitar.

Listen to: Sequined Mountain Ladies

In case you missed a blog post from last month, I have a new guitar album out, with my long-time editor and musical collaborator, Allister Thompson. This is our second album, the first was Fifth Season (Nov, 2015).

The new album is called Birches, and is graced with cover art by local Toronto artist, Baye Hunter.

Sequined Mountain Ladies is my (current) favourite piece. Enjoy!

When authors and editors write music together, Part 2

Birches in Summer, paper collage, by Baye Hunter

It's been two years since my first album release with my long-time editor and wonderful musician, Allister Thompson, but today is the release of album number two! I'm so honoured to share it with you.

Please enjoy Birches at Bandcamp
It's also available free here: Birches, FMA 

You'll find eight instrumental guitar pieces, in the style of Bruce Cockburn or Samuel Beam, inspired by the Canadian forest of Algonquin Park and the Haliburton Highlands.

Here's the title song: Birches 

There's a song for my sailing life, Outer Harbour, and the companion piece, Algonquin. I play both songs with Travis picking, a distinctive style I love. There are a few songs celebrating family life, including Sarah Tiptoes, written for my daughter. And there's even a tip of the hat to Lovecraft, Mountains of Madness, where Allister does some very scary stuff with his voice.

This release also includes my first vocal recording, Moonlight. I have to thank Allister for convincing me to record it, but it's a lovely song about sorrow which is also bound with love and joy. I wrote it for my sister-in-law, who had the most beautiful voice of all.

Many thanks also to Baye Hunter, another musical friend and a terrific artist, whose paper collage work, Birches in Summer, adorns the cover. You'll find more of Baye's collage and watercolour here: www.bayehunter.com

Our first release, Fifth Season (Nov/2015), has had over five thousand listens, and one song, Summer, was the Free Music Archive Song of the Day in May, 2016. Plus, many tunes have been adapted by various folks in artistic videos, you can see them on my Youtube channel (I love the one from the Netherlands the most, I think, it's the windmill).

It's always a joy to create music with my friends. Please enjoy Birches, with our gratitude.