Acapollinations

Chapel of Sunlight Through The Trees

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One revolution around the sun since Acapollinations planted their roots on stage at WOMADNZ. If there were words to accompany this live recording :

I would write about –
What it is like to sing flanked by
Sally Jamila Howe’s cinnamon wood & earthen bass
By Chelsea Prastiti’s salty Cyprus island clamour …


I would write about –
The WOMADNZ audience, who are like plants in their (g)listening
And that chapel of sunlight through the trees
As if we had come home to the Bell Dell Stage
Home to a people and a place – 
To the depth & colour of the listening culture of that festival.
And how much I miss them

I would write about –
How it was to sing, exposed
And supported
Like Trio Bulgarka, who say that
Yes, this is demanding
Nothing to hide behind
Nothing to ride upon 
But the expectant silence
And so, breath does become music
And the voices are both 
Vulnerable & sovereign

(I spent years battling stage sound to allow the full frequencies of the voice to be heard over amplified instruments. And here we are now, with all the space in the world to weave our timbre through, to make a forest, for a moment or two … )

This gift of space comes with its dare – 
I dare you! 
To occupy
To inhabit

The voice –
Which speaks of everything we have come through
Which speaks of everything we dream of
But most of all,
Is the touch of the sound of a moment that we share

These stories
These temperatures of the soul
Today

Thank you, for listening anew !

ACAPOLLiNATiONS live on the Dell Stage @ WOMADNZ, Sunday 19th March 2023, recorded and mixed by Paul Jeffreys.

River of Song

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It has been a long time I’ve not found the words…

                                       Photo Trevor Villers

Something about… the River of Song. The one that flowed before we earthed, the one that will continue after we are gone. Old songs, fresh takes. Two Ensembles I lead, Acapollinations & Medena Ensemble, had the pleasure last weekend of sharing this devotion – in joyful colour and resonant bodies – at the 51st Auckland Folk Festival ! Tender eye, Trevor Villers & the young Sabine Mignault were there to capture moments during our acapella contribution to the “Songs From The Old Country” program.

These images are a trace of a sound, first of all. The sound that originates before it begins. The open, connective shapes that we align with, before the voice is even heard. Our dedication to the continuum of vowel matter as musical line. The un-ending, un-starting river running, that we join for a while. Breath as an integral part of the wheel of sound, naturally occurring as a consequence of complete, and devotional, delivery of the musical phrase. The gift of love in motion, released to the world.

The stirring continues…

In lending myself to the propagation of beautiful dissonance, trans-cultural vocal calibrations, and an intentional return to the vulnerable, powerful, ancient arts of acapella music – I’d like to share with you our upcoming Workshops & Concerts :

1. “Like Ringing Bells & Howling Wolves” Interferential Diaphony Workshops will pop up in: RAGLAN next Sunday 11th Feb (half-day) and in WELLINGTON on Saturday 2nd March (full-day) REGISTER HERE

2. ACAPOLLiNATiONS Trio, featuring the fresh soprano raptures of Gabrielle Young (Cantonese-Belgian-Kiwi), are taking their “M/OTHER Tongue” repertoire to Festival of Cultures in Palmerston North (Saturday 24th February) and Newtown Festival in Wellington (Sunday 3rd March). See you there!

3. For those of you taken by the honeyed voices of Medena Ensemble, save your Sunday 19th May to join us in the beautiful wooden heart of the Unitarian Church, in Ponsonby, Auckland @ 3pm.

“A La Claire” (music video) to celebrate the new ACAPOLLiNATiONS album M/OTHER Tongue

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When I enter into the process of arranging a traditional song, I take comfort in the lineage, the generations of singers, the hardened, gnarled sinew of the melody, over time… Because the song exists as a living entity of its own, I can literally sit back and listen to the wishes it has for us. Of course, they come through the lens of what I believe to be possible, but most often, the vocal parts present themselves and there is a sensation of revelation – quite the opposite of thinking. Making a moving image for the recording is much the same – while out walking, I can see things unfold in my minds eye, but once it is time for capture and I am with camera in hand, it is an entirely new process, where one follow leads and accept invitations… As if those ideas were just something to leave behind.

This arrangement was made for my grandmother, who taught me this song as a child – with her voice like a flute made of light. I remembered the feelings more than the words. This arrangement is also made for the eternal maiden within, who will always feel things to the fullest, and who enters into communion with the natural world each day – taking delight in the slightest of things.

Nothing purer than dew - 

Dew that does not last,

But refracts a sunlight wonder, 

For those who do attend.

Bird, leaves and promises to the wind!

The capacity to lean into a body-soul encounter,

All the while maintaining a body-soul sovereignty.

The new ACAPOLLiNATiONS album M/OTHER Tongue (2023) is a multi-lingual, compelling collection of colourful folklore songs, where archaic musical systems are reimagined for three vivacious voices. In this recording, Tui Mamaki (French-Kiwi), Chelsea Prastiti (Greek-Kiwi) and Sally Howe (Cook Island-Kiwi) interweave songs from their grandmothers – both genetic and imagined – with a bespoke repertoire issue of Tui Mamaki’s love affair with Bulgarian Folklore. Evocative melodies, stirringly close harmony and stories we all know – of longing, harvest and transcendence – heard anew.

Purchase the M/OTHER Tongue album (physical or digital) here

Get tickets for Sunday 12th March Album Release Concert here

See ACAPOLLiNATiONS @ WOMAD NZ on 18/19 March 2023

BEFRIENDING CHANCE

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C.H.A.N.C.E = Cosmic Heart-full Alignment (with) Non-linear Creative Energy/Engagement

If anything, I mean anything, was possible, if you could live out your dream, what would it look like, in the detail? What small gestures would populate your days, what behaviors would you engage in, in the small ways, if you were, in fact, your idols? Assuming we are made for this. Participation. Gratitude action. To befriend chance we have to be fit with our craft, alert + actually willing to receive.

Having a solo set (album is on its way) has been more than giving myself wings. It has been a make-over of my fundamental beliefs about how things function. Having this vessel built, and available for adventure, has me being able to say… YES!

YES to collaborating with a collection of such fine Australian musicians at UNwind Festival this May, thanks to a chance conversation and spontaneous collaboration with the phenomenal percussionist Ben Walsh on a festival stage this summer.

YES to collaborating with the enchanting minstrel Piers Faccini in his exquisite acoustic series La Route de La Voix (entirely human-amplified intimate concerts in old stone chapels in the South of France), this thanks to following my curiosity re microphones down the rabbit hole of Rokia Traore’s Tchamantché album, finding engineer Patrick Jauneaud in the mountains, honoring our subsequent collaboration with all the musical love I could muster, and to his sharing those mixes with someone he knew…

(Stay tuned for the release of FLY, taster HERE)

And YES to the privilege/challenge of performing our own arrangements of traditional Balkan folklore with my sassy acapella trio ACAPOLLiNATiONS this Sunday, just because we loved it at Te Uru Gallery last time (another entirely human-amplified concert).

UPCOMING SHOWS
30th April – ACAPOLLiNATiONS @ Te Uru Gallery, Titirangi, Auckland, Aotearoa/NZ
5-7th May – UNwind Festival @ Paradise One, Byron Bay, AUSTRALIA
9th May – Tui Mamaki & Encuentro Dos @ Open Studio, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
20th May – Tui Mamaki & Piers Faccini @ La Route de La Voix, Issensac, FRANCE

And to finish, some stills from an upcoming music video RIWAKA, born of a chance conversation with Shannon Schnittker from Traveling Filmmakers at Luminate Festival this year, and the synchronized map movements that followed.  Definitely a fan of following up on crazy ideas, and in doing so, allowing the paths of grace to collide…

Resonate

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A gallery space, an artist who sang to himself in it and who wondered what it would be like to gather here a bouquet of voices, an audience. Diversity came to the George Fraser Gallery. The line up promised intimacy and surprise. Promises were delivered, were mainlined into ears, mouths, hearts and beyond.

I felt so nourished as a vocalist, part of an intricate web of cross-pollinations, as if we had all been transformed, biologically.

In fact, the world had opened, like a pod of ripe seeds. When it came to an end, I strolled into the biting cold with a warm mind. I spoke to an unusual number of strangers that night and had the distinct sensation of actually conversing, of actually exchanging ideas.

In a rather frolic mood I crashed a party, which turned out to be the annual gathering of NZ art teachers. In the electrified cacophony of the gallery dance hall, I came face to face with a woman I hadn’t seen for 20 years, then with my favorite high school teacher – someone who has influenced my creative approach to the core. I was able to tell him how much it meant to me, how much he had given me.

I handed him copy number 51/100 of the hand-sewn Acapollinations EP, which a friend calls aural wasabi. We discussed the fact that it contained my extensions on socialist state arrangements of Bulgarian folk music. We decided to call it post-post-modern-folk.

Last night was proof that magic exists, and likes it when you explore.

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