This is Vermont edition.

I'm Mikaela LeFrak.

Today, we are broadcasting in front of a live studio audience of Vermont public members and supporters.

We are in Vermont public Stetson's studio one in Colchester with the talented local musicians Seamus Egan Moira Smiley and Yann Falquet.

Seamus is an internationally acclaimed Irish folk musician based right here in Vermont.

He's the founder of the Irish American band Solas, and is well known as one of the leading composers and interpreters of the tradition.

He's also a multi-instrumentalist, and if you are listening on the radio, let me just tell you that these musician are surrounded by instruments.

Moira Smiley is a Bristol based folk musician and composer.

She's recorded and performed with the indie band The Tune-Yards, and has a new folk album out this year called The Rhizome Project.

They'll be accompanied today by Yann Falquet, a guitarist who specializes in Québécois traditional music let's give a round of applause to our musicians for being here.

Seamus, you grew up in Ireland and you have this deep knowledge of traditional Irish music.

I'm curious to hear when music first hit your consciousness and became something that you knew was going to b an integral part of your life.

That's it would have happened very at a very young age.

I started playing when I was about six, and I was about seven.

And I remember we didn't have we didn't have a television.

But our neighbors did.

And, if there was anything coming on television that was sort of musical or of that nature, our parents would send us down to the neighbors house to, to watch this.

And there was a program that was on, that was featuring, James Galway, the, you know, the classical flute player, and, and Matt Malloy, who was in my, to my ears, the best flute player ever.

And stil I think the best flute player.

And I saw I'd never seen them play, I'd never seen a flute be played.

But I had heard it, and that was the moment I knew that that's what I wanted to do.

And I remember racing home, and I had this flute that was in the cupboard that I hated, but from that moment forward, I loved it.

And and so.

Yeah.

So from that, that was just sort of like it was a singular moment and I knew.

Why did you hate the flute in the cupboard?

Because it was plastic.

And it had the sharpest tone hole.

It would just wreck your lips.

It was just like.

It was like putting your mouth against a blade.

And I was, you know, tryin to practice on it, and I just.

But after I heard what it could sound like and had that sound and visual in my head, it did.

It didn't matter anymore.

But yeah.

So I just kind of got over all of that, and it was just trying to get that sound.

Moira did you have a similarly painful entry into music?

What was your first instrument that you learned?

My For me, it was just listening to records and organizing my my parents record collection and, being enamored of all the Smithsonian Folkways Records and my mother's jazz records and the smell of the record box, you know, was a very, very important part of being, immersed in the whole experience of music.

So, and I think the piano was a way in to being able to get it in my body.

And, but I was a pretty nervous little piano player, even though I, I loved it, I loved it, and I hated it.

And I remember at age 12 because I was, you know, in a small school, I said, okay, everybody, I'm turning 12 and I'm going to quit piano.

So, that's my identity is no longer the piano, you know, everybody.

So and I thin I changed my name also to Gwen at the time.

So, I had a little bit of a love hate relationship with the instrument, too, s it's like you're Sasha Fierce.

Yeah, yeah.

And Yann, When did you first learn the guitar?

Well, I in high school.

I grew up in Quebec.

And then when I switched to high school, it was a school that had a music program, and I just got to pick an instrument, and there was all of them in front of me, and there was this little box in very convenient and easy to carry, it was a clarinet.

And I played for one year at the same time as I was discovering Pink Floyd and LED Zeppelin.

And then I realized quickly enough it would never be able to play that music on the clarinet.

The next year, I talked to the people and they said, maybe you should switch to guitar.

And that's that's what I've been doing.

I was a little older than Seamus.

I was, 11 or 12 when I switched to guitar.

Well, the first song that you all are going to be playing for us is called Morning Dove.

Moira, what should our audience know about this song before you play it?

This song kind of bloomed out of the pandemic and the solitude that we were all within, and it also expresses the, well, watching nature, which you can do outside of the window more easily here in Vermont.

And, there were two mourning doves nesting near our, our house.

And I found their way of of creating the nest and their egalitarian sort of coming and going, very beautiful.

And, and so it's, it's a, a song very much based in Vermont, but I also have always wanted to bring the Mourning Dove and that sound into something that I was doing, because that's my favorite call.

So, that call sounds so mournful and and also hopeful to me, that sound.

And for me, it was an inspiration of how these two birds were, were moving together, of how to be in solitude at some times and then invite your, your loved one in, and to cultivate that beautiful sense of sharing, even though you'll fly away often, as we do as musicians, and be on our own fo for many weeks at a at a time.

This is Mourning Dove.

A morning dove cries in the winter A mournful sound, a cry for his love.

Winter at my window.

You wrap me in your solitude I love your song.

It calls me to your side.

Wind around me.

As the snow flies out.

Winter at my window.

You wrap me in your solitude.

A morning dove calls from her nest.

Branch over branch and a circle is drawn.

Winter at my window.

You wrap in solitude.

In the dark of the morning.

And the hush in the night.

Child comes home in the twilight.

Winter at my window.

You wrap me in your solitude.

A morning dove flies at dawn.

Begin again.

As the lights comes.

Winter at my window.

You wrap in your solitude.

And I will fly far, far away.

But I will return at the break of day.

Winter at my window.

You wrap me in your solitude.

<applause> We're gonna have a line of mourning doves waiting to meet you outside.

Responding to your call.

Oh, I would love that winter in my window.

That is certainly the experience that we are all having right now in Vermont.

It reminds me of a question that we got for you all from a listener ahead of today's show.

A listener named Sarah, I believe is in the audience today.

Sarah asks, why is Vermon a good place for making music?

I imagine each of you has a different answer to that.

Moira, let's start with you.

I love that question.

I grew up here, and for me, then leaving Vermont, I got to see how Vermont is a special place of, carpenters and musicians.

Everyone can make things, and everyone, can make music.

And there's this beautiful ethos that, you can just do it wherever music is, to be made everywhere.

And I think that's a real, special thing that happens when, when community music is very valued.

And so and I was blessed to have that growing up that I had this classical, sense of, classical music was sort of how I trained.

But then all around that was folk music and folk musicians and dancers and, things that were very humble, but at the same time so delicious and good.

So I feel like that's for me why Vermont is a it's a really happening place for music.

Moira, you grew up here, Seamus, You grew up in Ireland.

Why Vermont?

Well, you know, after Ireland, I was I lived in Philadelphia for many years and, you know, you know, most of my adul life has been spent traveling.

But so when I being in Philadelphia, it was, it was sort of it, it felt like it was sort of just like a place for temporary sort of in.

And then I was gone again.

And being here when I moved to Vermont, I sort of felt like I'd never really experienced being for prolonged stretches of time so close to nature.

And in fact, I had actively gone out of my way to avoid such encounters.

So so once I was her and kind of settled into that, just the different sounds of, of, you know, you know, it's a lot quieter, but also like hearing, you know, wind through the leaves and, you know, lots of birds and, and other thing I couldn't identify once, once I got used to that, I was like, this is really I know it changed how it kind of changed the temp, my sort of internal tempo somehow.

In a, in a, I think in a way that I felt sort of positive about and it just, I don't know when I, when I settled in here, I started to write an awfu lot, which I was grateful for.

Do you, do you find yourself trying to mimi some of those sounds of nature with the different instruments that you play?

I'm not sure if it's mimicking but I definitely felt sort of, a pull to, to incorporate them in into what I was making.

It just sounded like it was it just sound so much of it sounded very melodi and sounds very melodic to me.

That it felt it felt like a natural sort of, evolution to, to to try and bring those sounds into what I was doing and seeing if I could, I don't know, jus sort of blend with them a bit.

And so I've really enjoyed that.

You know, we're running out to the woods with a, with a recorder and just seeing, you know what's what happens, you know, and, John, you traversed our northern border to come to Vermont from Quebec.

Why is Vermont a special place for you to make music?

Yeah, well, I agree wholeheartedly with Moira that Vermont is a fantastic place to live as a musician.

I live, I'm from North, but I live way south.

I live in Brattleboro, Vermont now, which is basically Florida, basically Florida.

I forgot to bring oranges the next time I, it's a little bit like Burlington within Vermont.

It's a it's a slightly bigger town city.

And it's incredible.

I was I had friends there and I had I knew there was a music community there.

That's why I moved there.

But I just couldn't believe that now we on Monday night would go and play Irish music with some friends and then on Wednesday night there's a, there was a Québécois where gathering people played Quebec music and I and just so much, so much music, so much traditional music.

That's the type of music I've been playing for years.

But also, really big classical music festivals, Marlboro music next door, some of the, you know, amazing avant garde songwriting and all kinds of music.

And I thought I was surprised to see so much wealth of art and creativity in such No.

Not to.

What do you think?

A big urban center like Montreal, where I lived for for a long time, or Boston, where it was for a while, just there.

I think it's maybe what Seamus describe that, that pull of nature of being you come back from tour you maybe you don't want to be surrounded by the millions of people.

You want to go and be a bit of a recluse.

Close to nature, between between shows and I like all these elements.

Yeah.

growing up in Quebec and the traditions that you learned there.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what Québécois traditional music is, for those of us who are uninitiated?

Yeah, absolutely.

It's the music.

It's very much, a cousin, not so distant cousin of, let's say, Irish music, Scottish music, fiddle music in general.

I know here in New England there's a rich culture of, contra dancing.

So just gatherings are done on a Saturday night.

Everybody gets together at the grange play music to the the local musicians and some of these musicians were, in fact French-Canadian who came over the border.

So I think people who are into fiddle music in these parts are no strangers to the music of Quebec, but really, it's it's, you know, it's fiddle based instrumentally.

You get the fiddle, you get a, a certain type of foot tapping that's very distinctive to the Quebec music.

But when we sing, we don't sing in English.

Obviously, they're all old song that came from France or were or were written over the years in, the territory that is now Quebec.

So it's this mishmash of French culture and some of the British, Irish and Scottish cultures.

And so those traditions are being incorporated into those of, are there two guests, Seamus, you, have studied Irish music your entire life.

Why do you think it has such staying power?

It made its way into the United States centuries ago and really infiltrated our music traditions here in many ways.

Can you speak to its impact?

Yeah, it's it is kind of remarkable.

I mean, it's a music that I think it's, you know, regardless of your, your sort of background or heritage.

I think as a music, it's very easy to relate to where you don't have to know hardly anything about it.

Like, you can feel when it's joyful, you can feel it.

When it's sorrowful, you can feel it.

And I think it's, it's it's especially powerful at conveying those emotions.

I mean, it comes from well of of of strong emotions, and it, it, it expresses that and it I think it has again, as a music, it's, it's very resilient.

It can take different shapes and forms, but you can still there's sort of the blood pumping through.

It is always identifiable somehow.

They.

Yeah.

Like if I try and not sound like it, I can't.

Which, you know, it can be annoying, but it's a it's a but it is it's like the blood of that is sort of my blood is like it's the it's connected and and I think yeah, it's, you know, when people come up and you know, it hits whether you're in Ireland or you're, you know, here in the States or, or even in Japan or, you know, people come up and it's the same.

It lands the same way.

It's sort of it's it's kind of amazing.

And, and it as a culture, it's very open, you know, like session, you know, sessions.

We grew I grew up playing sessions with people gathering and and playing music and, and sessions are open like they're not, you know, there's there's no, there's no barrier to entry.

So it's welcoming, and you kind of find your own way.

I mean, there are rules and stuff, but no one says anything.

You just.

You'll get a dirty look and, you know, it's, you know, it's a very sort of gentle sort of, you know.

Yeah, in some ways, accepting, music.

Each of you comes from a different country.

It's describing the music that you grew up with.

But I'm hearing lots of overlap here and how we talk about folk music as a genre.

More.

Do you feel like folk is is something of an, an international or cross-border genre?

Yeah, I absolutely do.

And I think there is something special about folk music.

And for me, it's that sense that it's from everyone, you know, it's from the people rather than in an elite, you know, cultured, educated.

You have to only be educated and you have to have these very refined tastes.

Now, folk music, along with so many other different musics during, you know, once recorded, you know, there's refinement and it gets pulled into all different directions that sometimes are very classical.

And actually I love the combination of of chamber music, of, of classical music and folk music, because I feel like they tell stories, the sort of physicality, of classical music.

And that virtuosity can really kind of lift up.

A folk story, like a story that we all carry, care about and carry in our bodies is, you know, don't mess with my with my love or, you know, please give me my liberty or or make me feel that I'm equal.

These kinds of, you know, and let me express my joy how I want to, rather than how you say I should.

These kind of elements are, I think, a universal all beauty in folk music and folk tradition.

It just invites it says welcome, welcome, welcome.

Well, the next song you all are going to play for us is called Welcome to.

Well, so a fitting transition.

Very good.

Seamus, this song is about moving here, right?

It is.

Yeah.

It, you know, like people all over.

All over the place moving.

Yeah.

I loaded up a big old U-Haul and, with all my stuff and heade up the road from Philadelphia, and it really I'd never driven one of them before, and it really.

You're right.

It's terrifying.

And I was kind of amazed that there's there's no test that that U-Haul should make you take before America.

It's incredible.

It's it.

Every time I see a U-Haul on the road now, I have a very different take on, because I know how I felt and, and and driving it from Philadelphia to to to Vermont and welcome to all was was, you know, I mean, to put it mildly, I was a bit of a wreck by the time I crossed the state, the state border here.

And I saw the, I saw the sign there saying, Welcome to Orwell.

And, you know, I, I had never been to Orwell before, but I, it just sort of made a whole lot of sense to me with the way I was feeling at that at that moment.

And I just thought, well, if I, if I make it the next couple of hours and, you know, in one piece, I'm going to, to write something to, to to memorialize this epic expedition, I would just, survived.

So, so that's sort of how it came about, right?

Orwellian.

So this one's for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Seamus, is there a special - Do not need to breathe like we breathe.

Oh, I didn't really see you breathing very much when you were late.

How do you do it?

You know, that would make my father very, very happy.

Because when.

When I was learning how to play the flutes and the whistles and stuff, you know, practice upstairs in my bedroom and then I'd have to come down and play what it was that, you know, I was practicing for my dad.

And he closed his eyes, and if he heard a breath, I'd have to go back up and keep practicing.

So that's it was a very motivating factor because I, I practicing.

So, you know, if yeah, it was, kind of a little I learned little tricks to sort of breathe very quietly.

And so I'm breathing.

All right.

Good, good good.

Yeah.

How did can you tell us your your meet cute for the three of you.

How did you all start collaborating on music together?

Well, I think it came from from so I mainly play on tour with a band called Jaunty Column, which is a trio that plays French-Canadian traditional music.

Thank you.

There's three of you who know us.

And so over the years in the festival circuit, I think we we got to see soloists a couple of times, and we ended up at some point, Seamus, was the musical director for a fantastic show during the holidays.

That was, hosted by, the amazing and Brian O'Donovan, who was down in Boston with WGBH.

And at some point, I got to got the gig of being the guitar player of that show.

So we got to spend two weeks, 2 or 3 weeks every year, before Christmas playing music together.

And I think that's the most time we spent together was doing that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, once in a while, I get to play with these amazing musicians.

My my neighbors, I think I think I first met Seamus in 2007, in California at a festival I was playing, I think, with another Irish band at the time.

And, and then I remember I was supposed to in the year 2013, I was supposed to do a beautiful singing.

I also do early music and, did and I was supposed to do a singing, with two other women in James Turrell's, underground cavern.

The artist who works with light and I remember I it was a little iffy when it was going to happen, but at the same time, I got a call from Seamus or maybe Brian O'Donovan saying, we would love for you to be part of this Boston Christmas music, extravaganza.

And I had to choose between James Turrell and this Christmas unknown Christmas thing.

But I knew that I loved Solas, and so I chose to come in and come to Boston instead of going into the desert.

And, and the rest was history.

Yeah.

Your next song you'll be playing is Everything Always Was and Days of War more.

Would you like to sa a little bit about this?

Yeah.

So the, first one is a waltz written by Seamus, and, And I think I won't, try to explain it, but it's one of the most beautifu waltzes I've ever played, and, and it's just got all this pathos about, I think, a feeling the all the feelings that come to you after living a life where you have these little disappointments and these big changes that came from maybe breakage and, and, but also you, you come into this new space in life and, and that keeps happening to you.

And you keep, you keep, having this idea that everything always was there's this kind of larger sense of things, but I'm, I'm sort of paraphrasing, which Seamus might have meant by that.

Do you want to say something?

I know you've got an exact way better than I would.

Okay.

Oh, yes.

And and it's a beautiful segue into a song, actually, one of the first songs that Seamus and I wrote together.

Usually when we sang, right, I write the words, and then we wrote the music together, and, in this case, this was the chorus that we'd love everybody to sing on.

Has no words, but it's, Seamus sort of thinking of this melody.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

And it was so soothin that I wanted to pair it with, the emotions that I was feeling after the events of Charlottesville in 2015 and feeling so, lost and angry about that and about the days of war, that we are in that we've been in war for for decades.

And how to keep making beautiful music and keep listening like we've been talking about to nature and all these softer things, how to keep that going, that flame lit, in amongst, you know, all the, the very, egregious thing that humans do to one another.

So that's your segue.

You.

Was it with me.

Burning in the dark.

Three doors is night.

And there's no really.

How do you fight to the enemy?

Sing your song.

So tell me, Then I find the enemy I fear is I.

You know, every.

What is the for?

North and south.

And you.

Love.

Like these days.

You, You this day, And you.

I feel I've been away from the.

Do you see my heart beating wrong between our friends?

The only sometimes I find I feel and I sing.

So some please you can I I sometimes you.

Need the smoke battle so.

Yeah.

I live in these days.

And these days are war I grew up in these days.

And these days I. I little bit.

Why do I pray?

Leave me alone in this.

I mean how do you sing in these days?

What?

No one listens.

And you know.

Well, I find, because I must carry on the love to feed.

To make my home.

And I sing to know and love is near.

Because anger holds the hand I sing to know.

That love is near.

Because anger holds the hand.

Still I sing to know that love is near.

Her courage, teeth and of fear.

These days, these days of loving.

And these days these listening.

Are love.

I love.

And this is my.

Good.

These days.

Oh.

Oh.

to let you introduce this next one, because I have not kept up on my Duolingo in French and I don't want to butcher the title.

So pleas tell us about this last piece.

You'll be played with pleasure.

It's, it's, a seasonal piece.

It's called loogie o.

You can try that at home.

And here in the studio.

Loogie a little e. Fantastic.

Now, now you know how to say the mistletoe and the holly.

One of my pleasure of being, Quebec choir living in Vermont is teach peopl very useless pieces of French.

So there you go.

Look, it's a song.

It talks about how, I'm not good with plants.

I'm not.

I'm sure some of you are way better with, green stuff than I am, but the.

The mistletoe, it grows.

It grows on other trees.

Right.

And I think it kind of strangles them a little bit.

So it's about in the season you go and you cut them out of your apple trees or your apple tre are happy for the next season.

But then as a bonus, you have all these cool, slick decoration for your house.

With your mistletoe and your holly in the form of little red pearls and white pearls in French pearly rouge, a pearly blanche.

Can you try that bell at home and live?

Well, there you go.

And you have the chorus of the song, which is pearly, or who's pearly?

Blanche, the guy.

So sing with me if you want to.

All right.

Shall we?

Yeah.

I just love this blending of Irish and cover.

Quite an American folk traditions.

The the we're we've eaten today.

She was you, for a time were, in a band that some of us here might be big fans of us.

And I hear there's a reunion happening in February.

Yes.

We've been, you know, for the past eight or so years, we've been kind of on a bit of a hiatus.

And we realized that next year, 25, it would be our 30th year as a band.

So we, I know 30 years.

It's sort of kind of it's it's very sobering.

But it doesn't feel like it's been 30 years, but, you know, and in some ways, in some ways, yes.

But, yeah.

So next year we're going to, as they say getting the band back together and we're going to be touring all over the place for, for, for the year, but we're going to be in, in Barre at the Barre Opera House, at the end of February, February 28th, I think.

So I, I'm really excited.

So, yeah.

So if you're, if you're able to come out that night, please do.

Yes.

And there are many ways in our region to interact with these three musician musicians, both in person and by listening to their music more.

You have, a new album out called The Rhizome Project that incorporates a lot of Vermont characters.

Right.

It really, draws.

So it's a book and a CD.

The CD is with, members of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.

And that we call them the Rhizome Quartet.

But really, they are the Jukebox Quartet, so they do incredible programs of all kinds.

And we got together in Bristol in the mill and recorded, my arrangements, my string arrangements, of these folk songs and then the book is all about the characters in western Vermont that were influential to me, and also that, connect to the subjects and the themes in each song.

So the book, was an a very important part of it for me because it talk about your roots, the rhizome, and how when times are difficult, we can we can remember and, and go down into that root and remember the sugar in the ground, that, that is connecting us all.

And so, it was important that Vermont was around me were part of that book, the sugar that arises from the plants and trees around here, very important to us Vermonters.

Yes it is.

We've kind of made an industry out of it.

Yeah.

Infancy Canada grapes here as well.

Yeah, yeah.

And we hav just about a minute left here.

Help us give a little bit of love to the southern Vermont music scene.

Do you have any upcoming performances you'd like to let us know about?

For folks who are in that part of the state or region?

No, but cool.

I'll be.

I'll be around it out.

Look me up.

We'll go have a coffee.

I just released a solo album that, I'm happy to plug.

It's called The Crazy Year, my very first solo album after playing with 20 plus year with my trio.

So check that out if you have a chance.

It's so good.

Well, thank you Mariah.

And do do listen to Maura's incredible, incredible album.

Do you believe her place in southern Vermont that you like to play or see music?

Absolutely.

I love this this venue in Putney called Next Stage.

There's just a wonderful team of people.

They just it's, you know, first class venue, but also a real sense of community around it.

They have movie nights where they show movies they have a stand up comedian, but they also have a big place for folk music to love.

These guys, let's give one more round of applause to Yann Falquet Seamus Egan and Moira Smiley.