Hamosity: Music in Hard Times

by Richard Fay

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1.	Dawn 05:24	info	buy track
2.	Seán Mannion 05:05	info	buy track
3.	Northern Sights 02:59	info	buy track
4.	Raichu's Bulgar 03:55	info	buy track
5.	La Cabrioletta 03:53	info	buy track
6.	The Heron Pool 02:15	info	buy track
7.	Frankenitsa Horo 05:51		buy track
8.	Russet Fells 04:07		buy track
9.	Dances With Bears (At The Old Abbey) 06:24		buy track
10.	New Horizons 06:21		buy track
11.	Hamosity Horo 07:40		buy track
12.	The Seasons (Missing and Additional) 06:40		buy track

about

As the year turned last December, my thoughts were on the launch of the first CD, Helix: Music for Hard Times ... on the scores, the conductor, and musicians, on the venue and rehearsals, on the invitations and catering, and on the coming to fruition of more than 30 years of composition. Yes, I’d heard of Wuhan (Manchester’s twin city), and, yes, I’d noted the ‘strange flu’ news from China, but, as 2019 morphed into 2020, like everyone else, I had no idea what lay ahead. When the UK’s first ‘lockdown’ came into force, all my planning for the launch concert fell apart (as did the plans for events and plans and concerts and occasions up and down the country and across the world). And for musicians, for those earning their livelihoods through music, work dried up overnight, and the role of music for our collective well-being was greatly diminished.

This new album, Hamosity, was already in my mind, but its production in 2020 ... the product of isolated recordings during lockdown ... was the result of a desire to maintain both an income stream for the musicians with whom I am privileged to work and also to contribute to the well-being of musicians and all those benefitting from their craft. The full title - Hamosity: Music in Hard Times - is intentional. These days of locked-down musicking involved eight months’ of recording by 20+ musicians playing one, two, and sometimes more instruments. It’s been a sonic jigsaw assembled by Sam Gee whose own diverse performance skills grace this new album to complement his recording, mixing, mastering and production, all undertaken with patience, calm, kindness, and boundless enthusiasm.

Hamosity is endeavour which celebrates musicking in all its forms, and it challenges the pandemic erosion of music-making. The title comes from a decade or so (from 1995) of journeying in Greece, Bulgaria, and elsewhere in south-east Europe (the Balkans) - weeks spent in the metropolises and the mountains, immersed in the sights and sounds around me. It was a time, too, of personal contentment, of music, and musicking. A key aspect of my work in those days was the hamos (xamos), the unexpected, the chaotic, in which, and through which, everything seemed to develop. The CD takes its title from Hamosity Horo (2002) a piece which tries to captures that spirit of mayhem, destructive at times but also generative. It was built on a fragment written earlier as I despaired at the war in Bosnia, the devastation it caused, and the ugliness of humanity it brought to the fore.

credits

released May 6, 2021

Composer: Richard Fay
Mixing & Mastering: Sam Gee

Cover Art & Illustration: Claire Loveday
Graphic Design: Sam Gee

Musicians:
Yiğit Alp Onat: cello
Katherine Blumer: clarinet, bass clarinet
Hilary Dennis: piano
Bob Dinn: trumpet, flugelhorn
Jackie Fay: clairseach, viola
Richard Fay: accordion, euphonium, valve trombone
Jack Fearn: alto and baritone saxes
Pierre Flasse: trombone
Sam Gee: bassoon, soprano and tenor saxes
Rohan Iyer: tuba
Mabon Jones: violin
Méabh Kennedy: violin
Jemima Kingsland: flute
Claire Loveday: trumpet
Daniel Mawson: clarinet
Frankie McCormick: clarinet
Dan Mitchell: bass trombone
Lucie Phillips: electric bass
Alice Roberts: clairseach
Sheila Seal: piano, electric bass
Delia Stevens: diverse percussion
Sophie Sully: double bass
Angela Usher: tenor banjo
Ali Vennart: viola

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about

Richard Fay Manchester, UK

Manchester-based Richard Fay is a composer, ethno-musicologist, arranger, performer, and a producer (of shows including Amid the Mirk Over the Irk: When Klezmer Meets Irish). His works have been described as ‘ethno-classical’, a label capturing his melding of classical and traditional musical elements. He plays a variety of brass instruments and button accordion. ... more

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