SEPTEMBER 2026 NEWSLETTER

September 2026

Dear friends,

It was an amazing summer here in West Cork, Ireland, with lots of touring around and playing joyful concerts. Thanks to everyone who came out to see and experience Barefoot Baroque, we had another incredible adventure!

Barefoot Baroque musicking around on Heir Island - July 26

Autumn gigs coming up

I’ve a busy season of different live shows in September and October:

FIR BEAG: TONIGHT 5TH SEPTEMBER 9.30pm!!

Fir Beag play the legendary De Barra’s Folk Club, Clonakilty. A punk-folk band made up of 4 disparate local musicians who gather once in a blue moon for flights of wild and chaotic whimsy….Violin through distortion pedals??? Don’t miss it!!

OUTRI DOUBLE BILL: PLUGD RECORDS, CORK: FRIDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER 7.30PM

This month I am bringing over my old friend and long time musical collaborator ‘Dodge’ Paterson, AKA OUTRI for some shows, and we are doing a double-bill on Culture Night at the wonderful Plugd Records in Cork. I’ll be making a live violin and electronics improvisation, bringing along my trusty 1/4” tape machine for added weirdness.

20TH ANNIVERSARY ‘FRANCESCO’ SHOW: CLONAKILTY INTERNATIONAL GUITAR FESTIVAL

SUNDAY 20TH SEPTEMBER 2PM DEBARRAS

This year marks 20 years since my acclaimed record ‘Francesco’ came out in Australia. The culmination of a year of wandering the planet, writing songs with people I met along the way, it was a coming of age record that set me on my musical course. Original drummer Marcus Flack, and bassist ‘Dodge’ Paterson will be coming from overseas to join me on stage.

ABAIR AMHRÁN: FÉILE NA GAEILGE, LEVIS’ BALLYDEHOB: 3RD OCTOBER 1-3PM

Abair Amhrán (“say a song”) is a relaxed, supportive environment to explore the tradition of Irish song. The audience are taught to sing some beautiful Irish songs, then joined by the Vespertine Ensemble, playing my arrangements. This is an opportunity to sing these songs accompanied by a modern classical chamber ensemble. No previous singing experience or knowledge of Irish is necessary — the songs will be taught and lyrics translated where needed.

EAST CORK EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL

IMPROV/BAROQUE SHOW: SUNDAY 18TH OCTOBER 7PM: ST PETER’S CHURCH, CORK

Bringing together 2 of my musical passions, I will be joining with cellist Eimear Reidy and drummer Dan Walsh in this experimental show combining baroque ideas, electronica and improvisation. A definite one-off!

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SEPTEMBER BOOK RECOMMENDATION

I have just finished reading ‘The Score’ by philosopher and game theorist C.Thi Nguyen. It’s an incredible inquiry into games and metrics, and why things like scores work so well to make the experience of struggle so ‘delicious’ (his own term!) in the small ‘island of meaning’ which is a game, but then seem to kill all sense of creativity, nuance and joy when they are applied to larger life things such as education, health and economy. These metrics work to flatten the field and capture our value systems, forcing us to prioritise what can be measured over what is inherently meaningful, and fuzzy. He must be a wonderful teacher, as his writing style makes me feel that I’ve signed up for a super fun and dynamic philosophy class. He’s a rock-climber, yo-yo fanatic and brilliant mind.

Favourite passage (from his chapter ‘Art is a Game’)

“ If you thought that the point of art was the exercise of human creativity, then algorithmic art is a disaster. If the point of art is to be buried in the process, to be doing it yourself, using your own emotions and invention and sensitivity to fine-tune every detail - then algorithmic art is cheating. And not cheating in some boring legalistic sense, but cheating in the cosmic sense. By using algorithmic art-generation tools we are cheating ourselves out of one of the most precious activities we have left.”

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Hope to see you at one of the autumn gigs coming up!

Justin

FEB 2026 NEWSLETTER

FEBRUARY 2026

Dear friends,

January was full of snow and ice in Canada and Iceland (Check out my Violin/electronics piece ‘Things the ice held onto’at my Patreon Page) and now I’m back home in the green and rain of Ireland. I’ve been reading a beautiful book about how ideas of home and landscape have shaped the music made by certain composers, and having been away in wider, whiter, colder places lately I can certainly see how this is the case. If you listen to the violin piece above I hope you’ll feel it too!

January and February is usually my time for dreaming and planning music projects to take place across the year. I’ve some exciting things coming up in 2026, including working with composer Benji Bower on a big new show for the Ballydehob Jazz Festival in May, collaborating again with choreographer Helga Deasy on a project exploring trees and the language we use around them in science, ecology, mythology, dance and music, and I’ve just submitted an application to help fund a new project I’m working on bringing classical musicians into healthcare settings and dementia wards to collaboratively create interactive scores together. I’ll keep you posted! This is a hugely exciting and rewarding part of the work I do as a musician, and over the last years I’ve focused more and more on learning and practicing music-making with dementia patients. It’s an incredible experience to make music with people who love and need it in such a bodily, visceral, healing way - and to witness what gifts it is able to give them is always so humbling.

SAMHAIN MUSIC-FIRE FINALE IN CLONAKILTY

I’m sharing two videos with you from music projects I was involved in last year in this incredibly dynamic and creative community that I’m lucky to live in. The Samhain Festival in Clonakilty celebrates the ancient Celtic tradition of honouring the darker half of the year, halfway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, it's older than halloween and holds a real richness of tradition. In my town here we have a dynamic group of artists who curate a weeklong festival, ending in the parade and fire-show which a lot of the community get involved in. I worked with my friend the composer Clodagh Simmonds as she led a choir made up of three community choirs in 3 pieces she had written as the fire show commenced. The singer Liam Ó Maonlaí was involved, as well as a band of drummers, and my son on percussion and gong. (Look for the little fox!)

BAREFOOT BAROQUE SUMMER TOUR

Barefoot Baroque is a tour we do every summer, bringing baroque music to some of the islands and towns of West Cork, Ireland. It’s deliberately curated to be accessible and informal, as you’ll see from this little film which I made from footage I took during our 2025 tour. We plan to tour again this summer so I’ll keep you posted on dates.

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FEBRUARY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

I found some great reading time while away in January.

‘Between Two Kingdoms’ is an incredible memoir by Suleika Jaouad which I was recommended by a friend before I left, and then magically found in a charity shop. Its a story of chronic illness, and the difficult dynamics of being a carer and being cared for. It’s honest and life-giving and at times totally devastating. I recommend it for it’s wise insights as we all navigate this life at times as carers and at other times needing care.

‘The Connection Cure’ caught my eye in the local library as I have been involved a little bit in the new movement of ‘social prescribing’ as another element of the medical system. Ever since the advent of AI, I’ve really tried to focus my work and my creativity on nurturing human connection, as I feel it’s something we’re losing to this new technology. This book is an in-depth study on just how powerful connection and creativity can be and how they are an important element in our collective thriving and wellbeing.

Spending a month in the snow, meant no bike-riding, so to keep fit I hopped onto the running machine in the family home basement and started racking up kms! I wasn’t much of a runner before, but I’ve very quickly grown to love it, and have been taking part in the local ‘Parkrun’ events since returning home. The title of this book caught my eye! ‘Eat like a pig, run like a horse’. It’s a study of many different animals and how they move. It shows across the animal kingdom that exercise is the key to health, even more than diet. And it’s definitely motivated me to keep moving!

Enjoy the beginning of spring,

Justin

PS. If you’re in my area next Sunday 1st March 6pm, call into my spiritual home of DeBarra’s Folk Club for a special edition of Abair Amhran with the Vespertine Quintet. You’ll learn to sing some traditional songs in Irish and then sing them in arrangements I made for strings and piano.

DEC 2025 NEWSLETTER

DECEMBER 2025

Dear friends,

I’m writing this from a very snowy Canada, where we landed last night and will be spending Christmas with family. We travelled via Iceland where we spend 3 wonderful days exploring the quirky streets and shops of Reykjavik (see photograph above), the Lopi wool factory (after 10 years of knitting Icelandic jumpers!) and a trip out into the wild otherworldly landscapes to see geysers, waterfall and immerse in some hot springs. Iceland really is such a cool place with such a feeling of freedom and unique creativity. There’s a real link with Ireland that spans centuries - a shared feeling of independence and identity that goes deep. And a similar human scale to the communities. In short - I loved my time there and look forward to visiting again and perhaps bringing some music.

THE CHERRY TREE CAROL

As many of you can probably relate, the more mainstream Christmas music which gets piped into just about every speaker at this time of year can get quite wearying to our aesthetic and spiritual senses, so this has been my little rebellion each year. It's always interesting and fun to go in search of deeper and darker traditions which are still there to find, if one knows where to look!

This year I chose the ancient 'Cherry Tree Carol' which is thought to have originated in the 15th century in England as part of the 'N-town Plays' from Norfolk. It is based on an apocryphal story of Mary asking Joseph to pick her some cherries as she is 'with child' and Joseph getting angry and telling Mary to 'let the father of your child pick you some cherries'! Jesus then commands the cherry tree to bow down from Mary's womb, and then Mary gathers cherries while Joseph just stands around. I can feel his grumpiness. There's something quite charming about a story about the holy family having a domestic argument and harbouring grudges and annoyances. Maybe Joseph was particularly 'hangry'?

To me, I love these stories that humanise the more sanitised versions of these divine interventions. The heart of Christmas to me is that somewhere in the midst of our messy humanity, with all our grumps, annoyances and hunger, there is some beauty and illumination, some sort of holy 'normal-ness'.

This recording has been added to my ever-growing ‘Christmas’ album which is all available for download from bandcamp. It’s my gift to you! You can go there and download it all for free. And if you want to give back a little there’s also the option to pay whatever you’d like, and all the proceeds will be donated to Musicians Without Borders, a charity supporting music teachers and music therapists in Gaza.

The yule cat is an Icelandic Christmas tradition - Grýla and Leppalúði are the parents of the Yuletide Lads (13 troublemaking brothers!) and this is their cat. He eats people who don’t get given new clothes for Christmas.

LISTENING RECOMMENDATIONS

It was so great travelling on Icelandic Air as they have a whole catalogue of Icelandic artists to listen to in their entertainment. I spent a good few hours checking out some of the albums, although there was no way I could listen to it all - Iceland has a very rich music scene!

YLJA ‘DAETUR’ - This is a really beautiful and recent record of old Icelandic folk songs. So many of these albums can sound a bit trite and cheesy, but I checked this one out and just couldn’t turn it off. The guitar lines sound like Joni Mitchell, and the 2 voices are such haunting, perfect and unusual harmonies.

JDFR ‘MUSEUM’ - I played with Jofridur about a decade ago at Connolly’s of Leap and contributed some violin to a little film she was making the next day. She was great then, and has built a body of work since - so it was cool to see her album pop up on the plane! Beautifully made electronica songs.

BJORK & TRIO GUDMUNDAR INGOLFSSONAR ‘GLING-GLO’ - I looked across and my son was enjoying listening to this - it’s from 1990 and features Icelandic kids songs sung by Bjork (at that point she was in ‘The Sugarcubes’) with a jazz trio. It’s fun and a bit mad and very jazzy.

Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas, and I hope you don’t get eaten by the Yule Cat!

Justin

NOV 2025 NEWSLETTER

Dear friends,

This weekend all across the part of Ireland I call home, West Cork, there are arts events happening to raise funds and support for the people of Gaza. West Cork for Gaza has been organised by a collective of artists and citizens and I’m excited to be bringing some music to it in 3 different events.

SATURDAY 29TH NOV: 8PM: ONE NIGHT FOR GAZA, ROSSMORE THEATRE

A huge line up of artists from the Cork music scene - I’ll be playing with some, and bringing my own solo version of a Palestinian folk tune on violin

Tickets nearly sold out - available here

SUNDAY 30th NOV: GATHER FOR GAZA: GREEN DOT, CLONAKILTY

At 4pm the Clonakilty Youth Orchestra (which I volunteer helping) will be performing a collaboration with local choir ‘The Awesome Wonders’ - not to be missed!

SUNDAY 30TH NOV: PALOOZA FOR PALESTINE: DE BARRA’S, CLONAKILTY

A whole day of artists, comedians, writers, sessions all happening in my spiritual home of De Barra’s folk club. Fir Beag, the punk folk band that I play with (which only get on stage once in a blue moon!) will be ending the night at 10pm

THE ‘HONEYBEE’ 5-STRING VIOLIN

Many years ago I was loaned a 5-string semi-acoustic violin from Paul Davies in Melbourne, Australia (who I had met years before when I lived there, and played one of his 4-string models, strung as a viola!) when I was on tour there, and it became such a part of my music making, with everything gravitating to that low C string! It eventually was returned to Paul, and I always missed the bass element when I was back to playing conventional 4-string violins.

Fast-forward to last year, chatting to my luthier friend Caitlin McGinn (originally from Chicago, now living in West Cork, Ireland) over lunch about 5-strings and all the technicalities of making them - and my wife and I decided it was a good time to commission her to make one, and really collaborate together on the design elements of the instrument so that it would do all the things I am looking for in a violin!

Caitlin is an extremely talented (and understated) woman, who as well as being a master luthier, also grows all her own vegetables, makes cheese, keeps bees, and rides around with her 2 little kids on a cargo bike. In short, we have a lot in common!

The process began on my birthday last summer, where I went over to her workshop and was invited to choose out the 2 pieces of wood for the back and top of the instrument - tapping the maple and spruce and listening to the vibrations - I chose out a beautiful piece of 'quilted' maple for the back.

Then the process came about where we decided on the corner-less shape, and what sort of sound I was looking for (darker, richer) and then as Caitlin worked, she would call or email me to discuss options and design details - the f-holes, the scroll, the colour of the varnish (we added a little bit of gold glitter- just for kicks!)

The violin is now finished and to celebrate I have put together a short film with a little bit of new music (made on the violin!) which you can watch right here:

I’ve also posted a longer video to my Patreon community with a full interview with Caitlin about her process of making the instrument from start to finish. If you’d like to support my composing and music making and receive new recordings, in-depth and behind the scenes films and writings from myself every month, do head over to the Patreon page and have a look around. Supporting me with the cost of a (decent) cup of coffee every month means that I can keep making the time to create all this new music and documentation of my process, which I hope in turn might inspire you to make some music of your own!

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: ‘Less’ by Patrick Grant

I saw this book on a table in Waterstones, Cork (a shop my son and I love to browse!) and the cover and tag-line caught my eye. I’ve been reading a lot this year about the fashion and textile industries and just how capitalism has turned them into overdriven models of unsustainable consumption which is so bad for our planet. I like well-made, simple clothes and things (like my Japanese tea-pot, and my Goodyear welted brogues) and so I felt some kindred to the book straight away. Reading it was a life-changing experience - Patrick Grant is a visionary with a mission to change our whole culture of fashion and clothing consumption. He sold everything he had to buy an ailing Saville row tailors shop in his 30s, then became a part of the ‘Great British Sewing Bee’ TV show, and most recently has invested is time and money into creating ‘Community Clothing’, a social enterprise grown out of a factory in Blackburn (which was going to close) which makes really good quality locally made clothes, supporting workers, local textile makers and investing money back into the local community.

After reading this book, I decided I wanted to learn how to sew and tailor my own clothes. I’ve been knitting ice landing jumpers for years, and know the satisfaction and feeling of agency that wearing a garment one made oneself can give. So my new project is to take it one step further and up my sewing game! If any of you are keen clothing makers, send me a message - I’d love any tips, hints, ideas or nudges in the right direction!

Hope to see some of you out at the concerts this weekend!

JG

OCT 2025 NEWSLETTER

October 2025

Dear friends,

I can’t believe September flew by so quickly - I was kept busy with the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival which brings such wonderful music from around the world to the streets and venues of our little town here in the South West of Ireland. I’m a member of the crew so am kept pretty busy sound engineering gigs all weekend, but I was able to do a little playing guesting on saxophone and violin with ADT, and directing the wonderful youth orchestra that I volunteer with each week. A concert of young musicians in our local library!!! (Sounds like heaven to me…)

I’ve also been busy making music with people in hospitals (a regular, and very rewarding part of my work) and did a recording and video shoot for my work ‘Litany’ in the beautiful town of Killaloe, of which I’m now working on a pretty interesting and experiemental edit involving re-filming projections! (If you’d like to have an insight to this project, and also help support it in a small way, head to www.patreon.com/justingrounds)

Bach’s E major Gavotte

In a spare 10 minutes after our rehearsal and before our concert on Bere Island on our Barefoot Baroque tour this summer, I sat down in the wonderful old wooded pews and played Bach’s joyful and folky E major Gavotte for solo violin. Here’s a little taste of a piece I played across the islands and towns of West Cork on our tour this summer.

UPCOMING CONCERTS:

I am playing in 3 unique concerts in the coming months:

12 October: Levis’ Ballydehob 7pm: Abair Amhrán

Come and learn to sing 5 traditional songs in Irish, and then sing them with accompaniments arranged my myself with the Vespertine Quintet

17 October: St. Peter’s Church, North Main St, Cork 7pm:

The Marvellous Mademoiselle Maupin

I am playing baroque violin with the Cork Baroque players and mezzo-soprano Emma Power in a concert celebrating Julie d’Aubigny, France’s swashbuckling singer of the 17th Century! (Tickets here)

28th November: One Night for Gaza

A big show with all the musical community from West Cork, raising funds for the people of Gaza. Tickets selling fast!

COMING SOON….

Lots of new things to bring you from my musical life in the coming months. I’m working on an interesting video concept for my work ‘LITANY’ which should be ready to reveal by the end of the year. Also, last year we commissioned luthier and friend Caitlin McGinn to make a 5 string violin, which I chose out the wood for, and designed with her to the spec I was looking for in an instrument. I have now collected the final violin and am playing it in and making some notes for small adjustments for her to make. We’ve been filming the process and I hope to have a film ready soon, thanks to the support of my patrons!

For now, I’ll leave you with a happy memory of a surf session I had recently with my son, where we were the only 2 out at our local break. Time spent in the ocean with family is so healing and rejuvenating - I encourage you all to get into the sea at any opportunity!

Love, Justin

(PS. This photograph, and the one at the top are by my brilliant friend John Beasley)

JULY 2025 NEWSLETTER

Dear friends,

I’ve been off the radar for a month, on a big family bike adventure through France and Spain. It’s something we do together every year, getting the ferry from Cork to Roscoff in Brittany and then hitting the velo-routes and hopping on trains to get further afield. I always find it so invigorating to have to live out of only the bags I can fit on the bike, keeping possessions minimal, but I find it opens up my mind and eyes to the wonders of the every day that we discover at out slow pace. My son brought his Olympus film camera and 4 rolls of black and white film so we’ve been busy in the darkroom since we’ve been back. I really enjoyed making some field recordings, which mostly centred around bells I heard; church bells, bike bells, cows with bells around their necks making generative music in the fields. A non-human orchestra!

Our trip finished in Bilbao in the Basque Country. Such a funky city! Arty, edgy, cultural, great design, a bit left of centre. Shout out to my old friend Harry Bird for giving us some insider’s tips for great places to eat.

BAREFOOT BAROQUE TOUR

In 2017 I had the hair-brained scheme of starting Barefoot Baroque with my friends cellist Tess Leak and harpist/violinist Katy Salvidge with the plan to bring baroque music back to real places and real people, rescue it from the stronghold of upper-class concert halls with expensive tickets and posh clothing! The tour was so fun and the following year we added , violist Gideon Wieck and Alto Camilla Griehsel to the band. We have been performing a summer tour of informal concerts in community spaces around the islands and towns of West Cork every summer since, with the aim to make classical music experiences accessible to young and old, in a relaxed and down-to-earth atmosphere.

Every year we have such an adventure together, travelling to the islands bringing instruments on ferries and boats, eating beautiful food together and meeting people with a twinkle in their eyes - its’ a highlight of our performing schedules, and it is always a refreshing and magical week of concerts for all. This year we are travelling to 4 of the islands, with support from the West Cork Islands funding. All concerts are free entry and open to young and old and a donation hat is passed around at the end of each night for the musicians.

If you’re in the West Cork area, do see if you can make it to a one (or more!) of the concerts - or maybe its the perfect excuse to come on a spontaneous holiday! This year we’ve been collecting and arranging loads of really groovy baroque dance music with a theme of ‘joy is a radical act’!

I’ll be collecting recordings and ‘behind-the-scenes’ footage on camera which I plan to release to my patreon community over at www.patreon.com/justingrounds

Shout out to my patrons! A wonderful interactive community of people who support my composing and music projects directly with the price of a cup of coffee per month. It means a lot to independent artists to have such financial support, and also the moral support of knowing there are people out there interested in the process. If you’re interested in supporting my work this way, and getting 'behind the scenes’ footage, new releases and all sorts of tips and ideas for creativity, do head over to the site.

Wishing you all a fun summer full of adventure and peace,

Justin

APRIL 2025 NEWSLETTER

APRIL 2025 NEWSLETTER

Dear friends,

Spring has come in Ireland and everything is getting lush and green and coming back to life. As an older lady once told me in a hospital music session I was doing “It’s like the world is waking up again.’ I’ve been preparing for an unusual performance I’m doing next month as part of Biodiversity week, improvising a piece of music in the biodiversity park in my town, in the evening, with a gathered crowd, responding the all the different species of life around us. In preparation I’m reading David Rothenberg’s book ‘Nightingales in Berlin’ (see below in this month’s book recommendations) and have begun to really put my attention to the birdsong I can hear around me if I really try to listen deeply, thinking of ways I could respond musically, and if ‘inter-species music performance’ is really possible!

BIRDSONGS

Yesterday morning I woke up from sleeping in a yurt where we’ve been staying on a family camp, and heard the most glorious symphony of birdsong. So many mixed voices, all joining into a wonderful texture. My first thought was to see if I could find a recording device and try to capture it, but then I thought ‘no need!’ and lay back to enjoy it. It really resonated with what I have been reading in conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim’s book ‘Everything is Connected’:

“The education of the ear is perhaps far more important than we can imagine not only for the development of each individual but for the functioning of society….Perhaps the cumulative effect of these skills and abilities could form human beings more apt to listen to and understand several points of view at once, more able to judge their own place in society and in history, and more likely to apprehend the similarities between all people rather than the differences between them.”

VIOLIN STUDIES II FILM AND DOWNLOAD

Last month I did a unique ‘violin studies’ improvisation in my home town for the Clonakilty Arts and Minds Festival, in the very unique setting of the upstairs of a 140 year old drapery shop. As a format, I brought with me 3 of my favourite suit jackets, spoke to the audience about their history and how each garment makes me feel, and then wore the jackets for different sections of the improvisation. It was a very moving event, for myself as well as for members of the audience, who spoke about how the music and clothing helped them to embrace parts of their own personalities, life experiences and so forth! One comment was that men don’t generally tend to reveal these vulnerabilities as much in our society, or embrace how the clothes we wear can help us to project and confront different parts of ourselves. I hope we can continue the conversation, both musically and sartorially!

Above is a film containing an excerpt of the piece, starting with the navy pinstripe, and moving into the Harris tweed blazer I inherited from my father. The full recording is available to my patrons at www.patreon.com/justingrounds (including the Bach F major Largo I played as an encore), or can be downloaded on a pay-what-you-can-afford basis from www.justingrounds.bandcamp.com. All the proceeds from downloads of this piece will be donated to labourbehindthelabel.org, a charity helping workers in the garment industry to get fairer pay and conditions.

(For more on this fascinating subject of clothes and their effect on us, check out Bella Freud’s wonderful podcast ‘Fashion Neurosis’)

MARCH 2025 NEWSLETTER

MARCH 2025

Happy Saint Patrick’s day from my little town in the South West of Ireland where we celebrate with a huge parade of all the community groups and projects happening. I’m always found on my beloved bicycle, representing with the gang of us who run the Clonakilty Bicycle Festival and the Bike Circus community bike workshop. Bikes have brought me such joy, health and adventure in my life and brought me human connections I would have missed out on in any other form of transport. I’ll always be thankful to my beloved bike, and will (try to) always keep her chain oiled and brakes serviced!

LIMERICK SEMINAR AND PERFORMANCE

I want to let you know about 2 performances I am doing this month. This coming Wednesday 19th March I will be participating in a public seminar at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, which will also feature performances of my works ‘Litany’, ‘Seams in my Socks’ and ‘Triple Spiral’. This will be the premiere performance of ‘Litany’, a work I composed as a graphic score for hang drum, violin, hurdy-gurdy and harpsichord. (See score above). Myself and harpsichord professor Yonit Kosovske will also be talking about our collaborations, the challenges and opportunities of composing for the harpsichord, and my creative process in general. It’s at 4pm and is free and open to the public. Do come along! Details are here, at the website of the Limerick Early Music Festival.

MARCH BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

BOB DYLAN: Philosophy of Modern Song

I loved ‘Chronicles, Vol I’ so much, and after seeing the wonderful ‘A Complete Unknown’ film last month I went down another Dylan wormhole, discovering that he has 100 episodes of his own radio show entitled ‘Theme Time Radio Hour with your host Bob Dylan’ in which he fascinates and entertains with always fantastic music from the 50s and 60s but also his quirky, encyclopaedic knowledge and take on the songs, deeply felt and human. I could listen all day! Highly recommended - as is this book, a collection of writings and essays on the topic of different songs from those eras.

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE: Guide to Modern Manners

I have read quite a few of the extensive collection of books coming out of this collective of writers/philosophers/pychotherapists and they are always very practical, heartfelt and deeply helpful in reminding us that we are human, and giving us the ability to transcend the stumbling blocks we find ourselves constantly tripping on. I was intrigued by this little tome I found on a shelf in my favourite bookshop in Cambridge (Heffers) and then ordered it in my favourite bookshop in my town (Kerr’s). It delves into such seemingly trivial topics as ‘How to spill a drink down your front - and survive’ and helps find the much deeper and more substantial basis to many of these dilemmas we struggle with in social life.

ISABEL FONSECA: Bury Me Standing

After reading (and loving) ‘Zoli’ by Colum McCann, a novel based on the life of a female Roma gypsy poet in the mid-twentieth century, I ordered this book from the library, as he footnotes it at the end as the book which began his desire to write ‘Zoli’. Its a deep dive into the fascinating and complex history of Roma gypsy people the world over, by a journalist not afraid to live and journey with the very people she is so passionate to understand. It’s not romanticised, but very real, and paints a picture of racism, suffering and exclusion, but also one of joy, talent, wit and a lust for life and survival. Highly recommended.

Hope to see you at one of the performances if you’re in the area!

Justin

FEB 2025 NEWSLETTER

Dear friends,

January came and went in what seemed like a flash. We’ve just celebrated Saint Bridget’s Day here in Ireland, where the coming of spring and new little green shoots is meant to be right around the corner. Let’s keep hoping for that. No matter what darkness we find ourselves in, nature always seems to come around to spring, reminding us that life wants to keep living, keep growing, keep adapting and coming back renewed.

DREAMS OF THIS YEAR’S MUSIC

For some years January has been a time where I actively practice thinking, dreaming, planning and making funding applications for bigger music projects I want to try to see come to fruition in the coming year. It just happens that many of the arts funding deadlines in Ireland come around at the start of the year, but it also feels like the right time to hunker down in the quiet and start envisioning plans. Applying for funding is hard work - it takes time and effort and needs the right language. I used to feel resentful about this, but I have come around to realising that it is actually a really positive part of my artistic practice and is worth making time for in January each year. Firstly for the reason that this public money is there to support art projects that will contribute to society, and that there is a chance we might be successful, and be able to do bigger things than we can on our own! But secondly, I would encourage all artists to go through this process, as doing the homework, really thinking and writing about what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how you are going to do it has an amazing way of distilling your idea into something real. Even in the times I wasn’t successful in getting the funding, the thinking and writing really helped me focus in on whether this idea was important to me, and the steps I would need to actually bring it to light. In some cases, the rejection only made me want to pursue it further, and I found other ways to fund the project and really put in the hard graft to bring it to light.

Presenting at Limerick City Art Gallery about my work with older people in hospitals.

HOSPITAL FIELD RECORDINGS

As many of you may know, a large part of my weekly work as a musician is as a resident composer in 2 local community hospitals, mostly making music together with older people, many of whom have dementia or other conditions. Its such an enriching part of my life, and has changed and transformed my attitude towards music and my understanding of its beautiful power to heal and to bring us back to our selves. During some of my recent sessions I have been making field recordings of some of the women singing, after they asked me to bring my recording equipment as they wanted to make a document of songs their parents sang them as children. The songs and the stories are beautiful, and it is a remarkable feeling to be able to make these recordings. In December I was invited to present my work in this field at a conference in Limerick, and also asked to perform some music to end the day’s events. I would have loved to bring these singers with me, but as they are confined now to the hospital, I brought my beloved tape machine with one of the songs on the tape reels, pressed play, and then improvised a drone accompaniment on violin through reverbs and loop pedals. The gathered crowd were suitably moved by the performance, and many encouraged me to develop this idea. So, this year, I plan to compose a larger work for live string ensemble with tape track running on stage. I’ve applied for some funding, but will also be putting some of the funds from my patreon community, and documenting some of the journey of the composing of the work as it takes shape - if you’d like to help support this project and interact with it as it is made, do consider joining the patreon community for a month or two - its a great way of directly supporting artists like myself, just for the price of a decent cup of coffee per month, with lots of behind-the-scenes insights delivered each month.

BUILDING NEW STUDIO

January has also seen lots of changes to our house with my wife happily finishing up work with her bean-to-bar chocolate business which had a little chocolate factory using two of the larger rooms in the back of the house. I am now taking over the space, moving all my studio gear down to this bigger room (including the piano - wish me luck) so it’s a nice opportunity of re-imagining of my work/play space and how I would like to set it up to be able to do bigger projects and invite more people in.

Having studied electroacoustic composition at Durham University, and been trained on analogue gear, tape machines and consoles, I’ve always loved the hands-on tactile nature of tape, and have had a fostex R8 sitting on my shelf for about a decade, sometimes getting the odd use. The romantic side of me dreamed that this studio move might be a continuation of my ongoing life project of ‘digital minimalism’ and re-analoging’ and that I could wire up the machine, maybe even get a 16 track machine and set up to work totally in the analogue realm. However, the reality has been sobering! Even after cleaning up and trying to re-align the heads on my R8, the reproduction of sound is a bit wobbly, a bit lo-fi, not really up to studio standards. I’ve had a look at a few second hand 16 track machines but nothing working well, and to be honest, the headaches and price of tape, not to mention lack of service people, have put that dream to rest. Digital is clean and solved a lot of the problems analogue was having.

I am learning a lot about what the sort of creative flow I’m chasing would look like, and why these old techniques were attractive to me. I feel like as soon as one opens up a DAW software, one’s focus is automatically pulled in certain default directions, like adhering to a grid pattern time-line, using a ‘click track’, trying to keep everything clean, and in order and in computer time. However, music made by humans never follows these directives, when we play together we are fluid with time, we sync to each other’s timing, we naturally ebb and flow.

Not having a screen pulling you to quantise everything is a good thing - it allows us to use our ears more, commit more to performances that capture the soul of the music. And not having every plug-in and every instrument sample at our fingertips pushes us to allow space, to let the music direct us, rather than the endless possibilities.

In short, whatever technology we use to capture our music, be it analogue or digital, it has to serve us, rather than dominate us. The end goal is to capture the soul and magic of the sound, and this should be what we strive to use (or ignore!) the tools to do. More limitations force us to extend our creativity and are worth imposing, joyfully!

The room is half set up, and contains a lovely dining table - so my plan in the coming months is to organise som ‘soiree’ type evenings here, invite musicians, poets, friends, loved ones, everyone bring a dish to share and something to perform, and we will have an evening full of human connection, collaboration, inspiration and hope. Give me a shout if you’re in my neck of the woods and would like to pop in!

JANUARY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Over Christmas I stumbled across this collection of essays and diaries by the wonderful classical tenor Ian Bostridge on my father’s bookshelf. He had no recollection where the book came from (perhaps a neighbour) but it was a fascinating read. Bostridge was a post-doctoral history researcher interested in the history of witchcraft and the decline of ‘magic’ in the enlightenment world. He argues that music is the last realm in a world dominated by rationalism where people experience this transcendent ‘magic’. Also, some wonderful diary entries from life as a travelling opera singer, and pieces about Bach, Handel, Britten etc.

The great Irish writer Edna O’Brien died last year, and I read a write up on her in the final newspaper of the year, celebrating those we had lost in 2024. Then I found her monumental novel ‘The Little Red Chairs’ on my mum’s bookshelf, so hoodwinked that. It is a deep, visceral, at times horrifying book, but gets so deep into the heart of the human condition that it leaves the reader completely changed, almost on a cellular level! Absolutely recommended.

Daniel Levitin’s newest book is a huge tome putting together all the latest research on music in health settings, and as I am working a lot in this realm, especially with those suffering dementia, it is an essential read. Thanks to my in-laws for bringing it over as my Christmas present. It has just been published in Europe but with a different title - Music as Medicine. As lovely as the Leonard Cohen reference is, the premise of the book is that there is no magical chord or frequency that will heal us, but that much of music’s power is in the relationships between the chords and tones and how they resonate in us in such personal ways.

Wishing you all a creative and playful start to 2025!

Justin

DEC 2024 NEWSLETTER

Dec 2024

Dear friends,

Those of you who have been receiving these newsletters for the last years will know that as the days grow dark in December I turn my creative thoughts to the tradition of dark winter music that spans back centuries and add a new annual recording to my ever-growing ‘Christmas’ collection on bandcamp. For me it’s a kind of antidote to all the crass commodification of this season that overwhelms me, it feels sometimes like I’m drowning in late capitalism, with all its flashing screens, over-produced music and its never-ending push to constantly be ‘productive’ (whatever that means)….

I find great richness in drawing back to the traditions of darkness, of obscurity, sometimes baffled and bruised, but seeking some meaning in the time when nothing is growing, the nights long and cold, and we need poetry, melody and human solidarity more than ever. Its a quiet thing, not shouted from the rooftops of the city, but whispered at a low octave from a humble place. And these days I feel like being quiet is a rebel act.

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER (WITH GAMELAN SPRÉACHA GEALA)

This year’s addition to the collection grew out of a season of making collaborations with the Gamelan Spréacha Geala (‘bright sparks’ in Irish) ensemble based in the nearby town of Skibbereen. This year we did quite a few performances together at various local festivals and in all the rehearsals preparing different pieces of music, we made this lovely recording of the old English winter carol ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, with many of the players using bows on the bronze instruments to create a shimmering, ghostly resonance. It really feels like the cold has dampened down all resonance and only quiet shimmers and the ringing of bells can be heard. I am also delighted that my son Ari played on this recording as one of the ensemble!

The whole collection can be downloaded at www.bandcamp.com/justingrounds and I will be giving any proceeds from downloads to Musicians Without Borders, a charity supporting music teachers and music therapists in Gaza to keep making music with kids throughout the devastation they are living through.

LIVE IMPROVISATION FROM UILLINN DANCE SEASON

At the end of October I brought together my collaborators Yonit Kosovske (harpsichord), Sarah Groser (viola da gamba), Vlad Smishkewych (percussion) and the wonderful Chloé Pisco (contemporary dancer) to put on a full concert program as the final performance of the Uillinn Dance Season here in West Cork, Ireland. As well as playing works by contemporary composers Will Ayton, Fiona Linane and Brooke Green, we also performed the premiere of our multi-media piece ‘Seams in my Socks’ and my work ‘Triple Spiral’ to end. But there was a magical moment right at the beginning of the concert when Sarah, Chloé and myself decided to open the show with an improvisation. Luckily Vlad caught it all on two cameras, and I’m delighted to share it with you here.

With huge thanks for the continued support from my patreon community, who contribute the price of a cup of coffee per month and enable me to document and create recordings, videos, behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage, and of tips and ideas from my own practice. Their funds helped me to put together this film and many more, and even more than that it is a really strengthening feeling for an independent artist like myself to know that there is a community of people supporting me morally, as well as with their subscriptions. It helps me in the lonely moments in the studio when the work feels overwhelming and I am lost for a direction! So THANK YOU PATRONS! (And if you’d like to get yourself a Christmas present, and support me too, do consider joining and being a part of the process of making all this music)

THIS YEAR’S EXPERIMENT

After reading books like ‘Digital Minimalsim’ by Cal Newport and ‘How to do Nothing’ by Jenny Odell, I decided at the beginning of 2024 to try an experiment in ‘re-analoging’. I’ve become more and more aware of the ways the technologies which seemed so promising 10 years ago have become tarnished by the ways the tech companies have tweaked them to extract the maximum profit out of us, the ‘users’. Social media is just noise to me, a huge cacophony of opposing voices all shouting over the others, and the endless scroll is a recipe for killing our ability to concentrate and spend time well. The smartphone (which in its original form was an excellent iPod/phone combo) has become an object of extreme addiction, robbing us of our ability to have silence, down-time, boredom, reflection. And email…..don’t get me started! (Except this lovely newsletter habit!)

Like a growing number of people around the world, I wanted to see how it would be to rediscover some of the older technologies that have been brushed aside in the race for newness. It made me think - why do I love the baroque violin? It’s a design that found its apex in about 1720 and after that, anything added to the design cost too much for what it was able to gain. Like the baroque bow - sure, a modern bow is longer, heavier, more adjustable, but the characteristic of sound and phrasing that is lost in this race for volume and sustain just isn’t worth it in my opinion.

So I started asking this question about lots of the new and in-vogue technologies - what does this convenience cost me? I decided to abscond from all social media (beautiful silence instead of noise!) and instead concentrate my efforts in writing and sharing this monthly newsletter - where I can delve into things more meaningfully, and only for you, my dear readers, but not everyone and everywhere. I decided to get back to my old hobby of writing handwritten letters to people I hadn’t seen in some time. The slowness of the task, and the smooth flow of my Lamy fountain pen, meant it became a sort of meditation, a prayer conjuring up that person into my solitude, with all the memories and love that exist there. And the fact that if I ever did receive a response it wouldn’t be instantaneous, only highlighted the dopamine addiction we have to ‘likes’. I found that I wasn’t needing responses or validations, but that the process was enough to satisfy me.

I bought a flip-phone (albeit one that allows WhatsApp - something which one can’t seem to escape) and just keep on it the apps for messaging and telephone. It became a useful tool again, and I got to start carrying around my beloved Fuji X100 camera and taking photographs for the love of it -printing them and sending them as cards. I have even enjoyed recording outside of the DAW box, live and onto an SD card, or onto my reel to reel tape machine, and find that my mind is more in the flow of the performance, without the need to sync to the click or grid that a DAW defaults to. I’m more keen than ever now to expand my studio to have a 16 track tape machine and offer people that older recording experience.

My first selfie, medium format Ilford film, circa 2002

Have I become a luddite? I don’t think so. My life has become quieter, less harried, more thoughtful. I’m enjoying the technologies that enrich me - like a fountain pen, a violin, a book or a tape machine. I like technology, but am much more discerning about how it can serve me, or hinder me. And in a world where everything is available at all times I’m wondering if it all just loses it’s value? Sometimes things that need a bit of work are far more rewarding.

The moment that reaffirmed it all for me was going to see one of my favourite bands ‘Godspeed You! Black Emperor’ in Dublin in September. They had battered old amps and well-used pedal boards and made such glorious, powerful, joyful and terrifying music in the moment, together, as an ensemble. But the best part of all was standing next to the four 16mm film projectors, and witnessing the projectionist manipulate homemade film loops in real time, sometimes holding the film static so the celluloid burned and melted on the lens, all projected onto the band. There was something so real, so tangible and moving about the whole experience, that I’ve never felt with digital laptop projections. It took so much work, but it was worth it, and powerful.

So my experiment has become a lifestyle and a joyful and quiet one at that.

I wish you peace and rest over the Christmas break - and hopeful things for 2025.

With love

Justin

NOV 2024 Newsletter

November 2024

Dear friends,

It’s been a month full of so much music, loss, grief, creativity and connection. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by how life can be so full of beauty and sadness all at once, so inextricably entwined. I am so glad I have a violin to help me connect it all up into something I can share with my community, near and far. Music is such a vital part of our lives, both individually, and collectively - it connects us to our deeper selves, it helps our brains and bodies function, and it helps us create rich societies, where tension and resolution can be made possible, where sadness and beauty can be safely embraced.

Here in Ireland where I live, at this time of year we celebrate an ancient festival called Samhain, which pre-dates halloween, and is held in the midpoint between the autumn and winter equinoxes. It is a time to embrace the darkness, and the things we bury deep down inside ourselves. They say the veil between worlds is thin at this time, which is a rich image we could interpret in so many ways….

I have been really busy with making collaborations with the gamelan ensemble based here in Skibbereen, which I made a piece with last Samhain, and it was so well received that the festival organisers asked if we could develop it further and then perform it in the big finale with the fire dancers! Gamelan refers to the traditional music and instruments of Indonesia, made up of these wonderful bronze gongs and percussion instruments. They are all in a very unusual tuning, so I have to try to match this on the violin. Together with Kevin MacNally (the leader of the ensemble) we have created quite a few collaborative pieces now, including some traditional Irish pieces played on these instruments! Watch out for a release in next month’s newsletter.

The traditional gamelan instruments in place ready for our Samhain festival performance.

TRIPLE SPIRAL LIVE CONCERT

After composing the trio sonata ‘Triple Spiral’ last year, and then making the film and premiere performance in Limerick, we finally brought the piece to life in a full concert program at the Uillinn Dance Season. Yumi Lee, who danced in the film, couldn’t make the performance so I went looking for a new contemporary dancer to fill the role and found the wonderful Chloé Pisco, who was back in her hometown (also my home!) for a while in between doing amazing projects like dancing with humpback whales!

We were given use of the space we would perform in for 2 days, and so gathered Yonit Kosovske (harpsichord), Sarah Groser (viola da gamba) and Vlad Smishkewych (percussion) together with myself and Chloé to work on creating a full concert of contemporary music and dance. The program featured the world premiere of my collaboration with Yonit, entitled ‘Seams in my Socks’ - an audio visual work exploring neurodivergent ‘stimming’, as well as Triple Spiral, and works by Fiona Linane, Brook Green and Will Ayton. Sarah, Chloé and myself opened the concert with an extended improvisation between baroque violin, viola da gamba and dancer. (For a sneak peek at this from rehearsal, head to this link at my PATREON page, where I have shared the whole rehearsal improvisation with the patreon community.)

Chloé, Sarah and myself in rehearsal

Sarah, Yonit, Vlad, myself, Chloé

NOVEMBER BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

As I do a lot of work as a musician and composer in healthcare settings, I’m eagerly awaiting the publication of a new book by Daniel Levitin called ‘I heard there was a secret chord: Music as Medicine’. In the meantime, I ordered ‘The World in Six Songs’ from the local library and found it to be an absolutely fascinating and absorbing read all about how music played a pivotal role in the formation of our brains, the evolution of language, thought and culture. He is both musician and scientist and straddles both worlds extremely well. Highly recommended.

I borrowed ‘On Time’ from Vlad when I was up in Limerick working on some music, and since my fascination with the circadian rhythm and my experiments with avoiding jetlag, this book is a further meditation on our experience of time, why it goes fast or slow, and how we can try to become masters of our time, rather than slaves to it…

I was loaned ‘Monolithic Undertow’ by Harry Sword from Mark, one of the organisers of the Samhain Festival and I’ve just started it. It’s a deep exploration of the drone - in culture, religion, science and music, and goes on a journey from neolithic beginnings to Sufi mystics, Indian raga and ritual amp worship of drone-metal band Sunn 0))). ‘The drone exists outside of us, but also -paradoxically - within us all; an aural expression of a universal hum we can only hope to fleetingly channel…’

OCT 2024 Newsletter

Dear friends

There was a frost on the ground this morning, the sun is low in the sky and everything feels crisp and autumnal. It’s amazing how the seasons change and bring with them such different perspectives. On Thursday night the Aurora Borealis was visible about the little town of Clonakilty where I live….but I didn’t see it until the next morning when I got lots of pictures sent to me! I feel like those creative days in the cabin in the Canadian summer were so long ago now! I hit the ground running on returning to Ireland with rehearsals in Limerick, the wonderful Clonakilty International Guitar Festival(which I am a sound engineer for) and lots of really enriching music sessions in community hospitals as part of my work with Arts for Health.

TRIPLE SPIRAL LIVE CONCERT: OCT 29

Along with Yonit Kosovske (harpsichord), Sarah Grosser (viola da gamba) and Chloe Pisco (contemporary dancer) I will be staging my work Triple Spiral in a live concert as part of the Uillinn Dance Season in Skibbereen, Ireland on October 29th. This is a rare opportunity to see this work performed live with dance, and the program will also feature new works by composers Tal Arbel, Will Ayton and Fiona Linnane, as well as the world premiere of my new collaboration with Yonit entitled ‘SEAMS IN MY SOCKS’ - an audio visual exploration of neurodiverse ‘stimming’ for harpsichord, tape and visual projections.

Tickets are limited and on sale at this Eventbrite link. Do come along if you are in the area!

ORCHESTRA OF LOST FUTURES

I’m delighted to share with you a film of a very playful musical event I put together for my friend Donal O'Sullivan's poetry/jazz event 'Snag Notes 2' on Culture Night this year in the Clonakilty Community Arts Centre.

(Fun fact: 'Snag' means 'jazz' in Irish language)

I had had in my mind for some years a faint idea of an instrumental trio I wanted to put together inspired by Australia's 'The Dirty Three' - violin, electric guitar and drums. And playing instrumental improvised music. This was a great event in which to try this idea out! I decided on a format where I would write song titles and prompts on cards for each of the musicians. The musicians can interpret these as they like. Then I gave 'wild cards' to everyone in the audience, to play whenever they liked, giving to a musician to change what they're doing. These were a set of Brian Eno's 'Oblique Strategy' cards that I had printed and used at a workshop I did earlier in the year.

The result was a lot of fun and the audience really enjoyed it! My son played the first wild card. Then that got the audience going!

There was one more piece, a very jazzy swing number, that we played at the end, but my camera stopped recording and didn’t catch it. I did however get the audio, which I delivered this month as a little bonus gift to my patreon community. Do head over there and consider joining to get lots of music, videos and behind the scenes stuff from my various projects.

OCTOBER BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Questlove is a creative force to be reckoned with - drummer and co-founder of the legendary hip-hop band ‘The Roots’, writer, DJ, film-maker and much more, he’s been a huge influence on artists across the board. In fact, I did his ‘Masterclass’ series on DJing and music curation and it set so many fires going in my brain, I went out and bought a battery powered scratch turntable! I saw this book in the library and grabbed it. Now, I’ve read a lot of books on creativity over the years, and this one started out with a lot of name dropping and tangents, but once getting into it, it was like no other book I’d read - a deep dive into Questlove’s thoughts, his creative life, blocks, strategies, wisdom…and lots of fascinating stories about other artists he works with and their ways of creating.

‘A Simpler Life’ is one of the many books created by ‘The School of Life’ - a collaboration of writers, psychologists, psychotherapists and philosophers, whose mission is to ‘bring about healing, growth, calm and self-understanding’. All their books I have read are very well written, clear and wise, they offer practical and very generous ways of transcending the blocks and problems we might face in life. This little tome was enlightening in the positive and perhaps unexpected ways we can aim for more simplicity in our everyday pursuits, relationships and possessions - always asking the question of what this thing/person/activity really means to us and then prompting us to either move on from it, or bring it to a place of deeper resonance.

Finally, ‘Smash the Patriarchy’ was a fun find while browsing the graphic novel section of the library that my son has got me into. There are so many wonderful graphic novels (I also found a great one about Leonard Cohen’s life) and this one tracks the story of patriarchy through history, how far we have come, and what we can do to really shape our systems and attitudes to be much more feminist. A great read.

I hope autumn treats you gently, and would love to see you at a concert some time.

With sweet hummings,

Justin

PS. If you’re in Cork or Kinsale, I’m playing 2 shows with Boa Morte, the wonderful band I have been writing and arranging strings and clarinets with for the last few years. 20th Oct at Primm’s Bookshop, Kinsale and 1st Nov at Coughlan’s Cork.

SEPT 2024 NEWSLETTER

Dear friends,

I have spent the last month in Canada, spending a lot of time in the little cabin where I have composed a lot of music over the last decade. I was reading Cal Newport’s book ‘Slow Productivity’ and in there he speaks about the importance of finding simple environments outside of normal life to retreat to and concentrate on bigger projects. Many artists and writers through history have found places, from coffee shops to remote cabins, to do their dreaming, thinking and creating. I was struck that I have been very blessed (through my wife’s family) to have access to this little ‘bunkie’ in the woods near a lake in Ontario, and over the years have used it for doing much initial composing work on some of my bigger projects, such as ‘Passacaglia Apis’, ‘The Embracing Universe’ and ‘Triple Spiral’. A few years ago, I took some time in another little cabin closer to home, and made a short film about the importance of seeking out these spaces.

SPIRAL 3 BRAND NEW ARRANGEMENT

I always love hearing from people around the world who have enjoyed or interacted with my music! Its such an energising thing for a composer to know somehow or other, often in unusual ways, that your music is making its way into the world and finding listeners. After we released the TRIPLE SPIRAL film last year, I got an email out of the blue from a Spanish musician called Josep Maria Saperas Lafarga, asking if he could have permission to make his own arrangement of the 3rd Spiral for his ensemble of recorder students! Of course I was only delighted for this - and then he went on to send me a video of the final year performance of the piece with his ensemble (and me on a screen playing the violin part!) and subsequently, also a video he made in his own studio playing all the parts, which so captures the energy and heart of the piece. He gave me permission to share it with you all here:

SEPTEMBER BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Its been a summer of bringing bags of books from the library to the cabin and devouring them on down time! ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ by Gabrielle Zevin was recommended to me by pal and fellow composer Will Gregory, and I’m so grateful as it was a wonderful read! (So now I’m telling you! Grab a copy and settle in) It’s a love story of two friends who create video games together and explores the complex worlds of games, collaboration, friendship and how we can express difficult parts of ourselves through the experience of playing games together.

‘Solitude’ by Michael Harris is a deep exploration of the ways elements of solitude are being lost in all the different facets of life - from our ability to deeply concentrate, to our ability to be alone with our thoughts. Quoting Vivian Gornick: ‘To write a letter is to be alone with my thoughts in the conjured presence of another person. I keep myself imaginative company. I occupy the empty room. I alone infuse the silence.’

Finally, a book I grabbed as I so loved the title (while I was looking for things in the library!) ‘What you are looking for is in the library’ by Michiko Aoyama is a charming story about the way a small community library and enigmatic librarian have a profound and transformative effect of a collection of different people living in the neighbourhood. Gentle, powerful and deeply human.

Looking forward to getting home to Ireland for the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival which starts on 19th Sept. And then a live performance of Triple Spiral in October at the Uillinn Dance Season.

Until next month,

Justin

Aug 2024 Newsletter

Dear friends,

Its been a really lovely few weeks of concerts - with our Barefoot Baroque tour playing shows all around West Cork (nice pic above taken by my pal Camilla Griehsel our wonderful Alto singer) and then Monday this week saw the big premiere performance of my work ‘Children of Lir’ to a sold out audience at the Skibbereen Arts Festival. It was a magical evening, with incredible heartfelt performances by dear ensemble Eva Coyle, Katy Salvidge, Tess Leak, Tadhg Peel-Walsh, Jan Leak and the most beautiful contemporary dance from Rosie Leak. All held to honour the memory of the late Robert Harris who commissioned the work back in 2019. As his wife Finola said in her speech, ‘It is so so sad that Robert is not here to hear the premiere performance of this wonderful music, but what a way to celebrate him!’ I am still reeling from the reaction from the audience, young and old, who gave 2 standing ovations, many with tears in their eyes. As a composer of music, this is such a wonderful gift.

The ensemble at the Children of Lir premiere on Monday night.

WATCH CHILDREN OF LIR FILM

Download ‘Children of Lir’ here. All proceeds go to support Amici Dance Company, where Rosie is an associate member.

AUGUST BOOK RECOMMENDATION

I read Jenny Odell’s keynote talk from the EYEO festival in 2017 and was immediately struck by how important her thesis was in an age of mass distraction and the new attention economy. Doing nothing in her eyes means doing things that don’t have a financial incentive, or productivity increase, but enrich us in much deeper ways - things like rediscovering listening to birds, sitting in common spaces, and getting to know, and care for, your neighbours. Things that may seem banal suddenly take a power as a strong act of resistance against the strong prevailing currents of big tech and media which are taking over more and more of our lives. She is an artist, teacher and writer and I would recommend this book to anyone who feels that more and more of their time and headspace seems to be being hijacked by external economic forces.

I hope you have lots of lovely ‘nothing’ time this summer.

Justin

July 24 Newsletter

Dear friends,

Our annual Barefoot Baroque tour of concerts begins next Wednesday.

We have been doing this wonderful week of concerts since 2017 when I invited my friends Tess Leak (cellist) and Katy Salvidge (harp/recorder) to make a summer tour of informal concerts in community spaces around the islands and towns of West Cork, with the aim to make classical music experiences accessible to young and old, in a relaxed and down-to-earth atmosphere. The tour became a regular summer outing, adding German viola player Gideon Wieck (whom we met while he was volunteering in Baltimore!), as well as the well-loved Alto singer Camilla Griehsal from Schull.

We look forward to the tour each year as it is always a refreshing and magical week of concerts for all. This year we are presenting a specially curated sequence of music and poetry I’ve been putting together to provide consolation and inspiration during these troubled times we are living through. All concerts are free entry and open to young and old. A donation hat is passed around at the end of each night for the musicians. If you’re in the area (or even fancy making a journey!) it would be great to see you at one of the concerts!

CHILDREN OF LIR PREMIERE PERFORMANCE JULY 29

Robert Harris was a vibrant member of West Cork’s cultural scene and a member of the board of Uillinn. In 2019 he approached me to commission a new musical work based on the mythological story of the ‘Children of Lir’ for his wife Finola’s birthday gift. I created a work for voices, piano, cello and concertina in three parts, bringing the myth into the current day with its theme of the power of creativity in the midst of suffering, exclusion and displacement.

The work could not be performed at the time due to Covid19 restrictions, but in the meantime I set to making a studio recording and a film to accompany the piece, featuring wonderful contemporary dancer Rosie Leak, who I was able to film on a trip over to UK last year. Sadly, Robert never got to see the final film as he passed away tragically following a car accident in March this year.

This premiere performance in the Skibbereen Arts Festival will be a tribute to Robert’s life and his contribution to the musical and cultural life of West Cork. Eva Coyle will be singing in the piece and also playing ‘Finola’s Jig’ on accordion in the final section - composed originally for Robert to play, as he played concertina and accordion and had a great love of folk music.

The concert will also feature another of my pieces; ‘I Shall Make for my Own Castle’ for phono-fiddle, strings and bassoon, which was commissioned by cellist Tess Leak for her Uillinn exhibition in 2015 and features her mother Jan Leak on bassoon. 

JULY BOOK RECOMMENDATION

It’s easy to get really depressed if, like me, you’re trying your best to live as sustainably as possible, yet all over the newspapers we read catastrophe news stories of how desperate the climate crises is getting. If so, this is the book for you! Hannah Ritchie is a data scientist and senior researcher at the University of Oxford, and she presents the data in a very interesting way with the argument that our technologies are getting cleaner and more affordable, we have already peaked in carbon emissions and if we can act positively and collectively doing simple things such as embracing clean energy systems and sustainable transport systems and adopting a plant-based diet, we can make huge steps towards a better world! Erudite, clearly presented and highly recommended!

Hope to see you out at one of the concerts this month!

Justin

May 24 Newsletter

Dear friends,

It’s been a month full of wonderful violin projects, from teaching at the annual baroque strings course at Cork School of Music (wonderful teenagers that give me much hope for the future!), to a new live recording of a long form violin and electronics improvisation, to last weekend’s performance of Purcell’s opera ‘Dido and Aeneas’ in Skibbereen Town Hall. It was an extraordinary performance, and when we finally arrived at Dido’s famous lament aria it felt like everyone in the room was collectively resonating with that universal human sorrow and longing that is so perfectly encapsulated in the music. (Check out Jeff Buckley’s take on it) My neighbour the artist Michael Wright took a welcome break from building his studio to come and sit and sketch in the dress rehearsal - wonderful energetic drawing below:

‘MAUNDY THURSDAY” - NEW VIOLIN STUDIES SERIES RELEASE

On Maundy Thursday this year I was invited to come and play an improvisation at the Church of the Ascension in Timoleague, in the dark, after the altar had been stripped and folk were sitting silently in the dark, illuminated only by a few bare candles. I responded to the void of darkness, the bare building and the resonance of this night of meditation on violence and grace. I wanted to ring a bell into the sense of futility that has filled me in the months since the violence began in both Ukraine and Gaza.

I have been toying with a new idea to release a series of live violin improvisations called ‘Violin Studies’ - to enter unusual and disregarded spaces and respond directly to their ambience and resonance with music.

‘Maundy Thursday’ is the first of this series and is now available to download (for whatever price you choose) at my bandcamp page. Please do click the link below and have a listen and consider downloading it - all the proceeds from this track will be donated to Doctors Without Borders work in Gaza.

MAY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

As a homeschooling Dad I’m already following a different path with my kid, and really interested in these dynamics so Michaeleen Doucleff’s ‘Hunt, Gather, Parent’ was a fascinating and inspiring find. A scientist and anthropologist who made radio programs with tribes and societies less affected by the modern western culture she noticed that the parents and kids are more relaxed, less stressed, collaborative and helpful to each other. This book delves into some ancient cultures and is a profoundly positive reflection on kids and parents - refreshing in a world that seems to pit one against the other.

I had never heard Errollyn Wallen’s music before, but when I saw the title of this book ‘Becoming a Composer’ I felt I had to give it a read. Not only is she a prolific and highly creative artist (22 operas and counting!!!) but she writes really openly about the process of composing a work, from initial ideas, to sketches, to practical problems, working with commissioners, players etc as well as stories from her childhood….Highly recommended.

I’m only half way through ‘A Book of Noises; Notes on the Auraculous’ by Caspar Henderson, but it has sparked my curiosity and imagination in untold ways and left me wanting to explore new sounds, new instruments, new ways of making music. It is a beautifully written study of sounds - from the sounds of the universe in the cosmophony, to earth (geophony), the sounds of life (biophony) and finally the sounds of humanity (anthropophony).

Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear from you - do send me a line! Or a book recommendation. If you’d like to receive the new music, videos, studio tips and film music every month, I have a patreon community here. For the price of a coffee you can directly support my work and interact as projects take shape.

Love and here’s to longer evenings and warmer days,

Justin

March 24 Newsletter

Easter Week 2024

Dear friends,

I’m writing this on a train headed south and home from Belfast where I have just spent two really fun and creative days making music for a very unique film project in an old church building in the city centre. It is a project bringing together a team of friends of mine who are an artist, filmmaker, photographer, poet and radical theologian. It’s been playful and experimental and the sort of environment that I thrive in - throwing ideas to each other and responding to create something great. It gives me a lot of hope that things like this are still happening in the world, a shared sense of human connection, trust, collaboration and joy. An embrace of the contradictions of life, without a need to provide answers, but simply to revel in the beautiful mystery of it all.

BUILD YOUR OWN FILM MUSIC

I do more and more music for film scores these days, and am also very encouraged by all the people making their own films now that the tech is so accessible. My son and I spent a day doing a filmmaking workshop and since then I've been thinking hard about how to make film music for people to access that is flexible and adaptable so that you can use it to build your own scores that fit the timing and dynamic of your films. Here's a solution I've come up with - delivering you a piece in small building blocks that you can use how you like. Below is a little video showing  how to stick them into your editing software and start to build a score.

If you're interested in joining the CINEMATOGRAPHERS tier on my Patreon community, it’s where I deliver film music, and if you're signed up, even just for a month, you can use any of this music in your films/podcasts etc. There's a library of pieces on the patreon feed, just search the tag 'FILM MUSIC' and I'm always open to composing something for a specific need - so write me a message and let me know what you're working on.

CINEMATOGRAPHERS on Patreon

MARCH BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

I’ve been immersed in poetry, philosophy and practicality this month. I first discovered Leanne O’Sullivan’s poetry through my pal Pádraig Ó Tuama who presents the wonderful podcast ‘Poetry Unbound’. O’Sullivan comes from the Beara peninsula, even further west than I live in county Cork and this collection is a deep journey through the period where her husband suffered an infection of the brain and was in a coma for 3 weeks, during which he was lead out of the coma by visions of animals and the natural world. Its a beautiful reflection on love, human suffering, the natural world and the beings that dwell in it.

I was given philosopher Darian Leader’s ‘Hands’ some years ago and it then was a book study on the patreon site of Peter Rollins which I support monthly. Its a fascinating study of how human progress and development can be viewed through the lens of our hands, from babies clutching their parents’ fingers through to adults everywhere clutching their iPhones!

Since I made my 2024 new year resolution to re-analog my life, I’ve been looking at new ways to re-assess the technologies we all seem to be encompassed by, and try to find ways of re-discovering the things we have lost in the advent of these fast all-encompassing devices. Cal Newport’s ‘Digital Minimalism’ is a powerful manifesto for this project. He’s a computer science professor in the USA and so by no means a Neo-luddite! He presents a strong argument for a re-assessment of the smartphone and social media, their toxic addictive qualities, the loss of solitude and deep concentration, and how we can free ourselves from the grip of the ‘attention economy’. I would recommend this book if, like me, you feel that you have been distracted from the people and work that are important to you, and long to dive back into the deep joy of finding flow.

In fact, since reading this book, I have ditched my iPhone and bought a cheap flip-phone. I’m also leaving behind me the world of Instagram and Facebook and will continue to focus my energy on writing this newsletter to you all. Its ‘slow media’ in the best sense and I hope you find some enrichment in it!

I endeavour to continue making music, writing letters, and offering insights and tips for creativity each month for my patreon community, who in turn help provide funds to make bigger projects happen. I appreciate you all so much.

Love and happy easter,

Justin

February 24 Newsletter

Feb 2024

Dear friends,

Wishing you all a happy new year! Thursday was St.Brigid’s day here in Ireland which marks the first day of spring - here’s to the lengthening of the days and the awakening of creativity after what felt like a dark and stormy winter. Welcome to the first newsletter of 2024 - thanks for reading and being a part of what my friend the composer Tom Adams calls ‘Slow Social Media’ ! I made it my new year’s resolution to write more handwritten letters and ‘re-analog’ my life a bit more….shoot some photographs on film, hammer away on my typewriter, and read real books. Although this newletter is being typed on my computer, it certainly feels more ‘analog’ and its a practice I’m enjoying - sending on news of musical projects, my creative thoughts and of course some book recommendations.

Over Christmas I went to the UK to spend time with family and friends, and as we always travel on trains and ferries I bring with me a faithful bag of essential things so I can be creative while travelling. Its all stuff that I bring when on 'holiday' (ie. not working professionally on anything) and such times are great because the mind can rest and be playful. 

I thought you guys might enjoy seeing what I carry around with me - maybe you'll get some tips or ideas. I made a full write up of all the things and some stories behind them over on my patreon page - its a free public post so if you want to read more do click over there for the full article.

CORK CREATIVE PODCAST

In December I was invited to be part of a podcast series all about creative people living and working in Cork. Geraldine Hennessy came to my home studio and we sat and had a really great conversation for the best part of an hour, discussing musical influences, inspirations, my work flow and even getting a bit political near then end. Music for president! Do click on the image above if you want to have a listen. (I like to listen to podcasts while washing up….)

On my bookshelf….

I enjoyed some wonderful bookshop visits over Christmas and picked up some great books. I actually have had to build another bookshelf in my studio, such is my love of them!

Chomsky and Pappé’s On Palestine is timely reading to get a really focused and nuanced analysis of the past, present and future of the situation and what we can do as activists which will really aid people on the streets of Gaza….

Lemn Sissay is a poet from Manchester who visited my school when I was 16 and really inspired me to start writing and being creative and out-there. I love this collection Let the Light Pour In as he wrote a 4 line poem every morning for 10 years to help himself out of the doldrums. This is the best of them. Its a practice we’ve been trying in our household and its wonderful!

A Sabbatical in Leipzig by Irish writer and artist Adrian Duncan is a strange and oddly beautiful novel which is told as a first person narrative of a meticulous and methodical engineer with an eye for detail and system but plays out some heartbreaking grief and loss as he goes through his memories of a day visiting the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. Its like no novel I have every read before and stayed with me for many weeks after finishing it.

That’s all for now. 2024 holds some exciting musical collaborations and performances which I will let you know about as the year progresses. I’m also trying my best to carve out some alone time in my studio to work on a new live violin/electronics/video projection show with max patches I have written to make audio-reactive video.

If you’d like to help support this work with the price of a cup of coffee per month and receive videos, music, tips and updates monthly do consider joining my patreon community. Its a really wonderful way to directly support artists in this new streaming paradigm. I support some unique creators on patreon and as well as getting great benefits, it also just feels right to give a little bit back towards keeping an independent culture alive.

Go well into the spring.

Justin

December 23 Newsletter

December 2023

Dear friends,

Every year at this time, as winter deepens here in Ireland and we make our way through advent, the streets filling with all the lights, decorations and all the cheer of Christmas, I set myself a final musical project of the year to take a more obscure, often dark and lesser known Christmas carol and make my own arrangement and recording of it.

I've been doing it for some years, and as well as sending out to family and friends, , I have collected all of the music together as a downloadable album simply called 'Christmas' over on bandcamp....it grows every year. 

There is so much dark and mystical music that has been composed over the centuries around this feast in the middle of winter. Its a shame that we only tend to get the upbeat pop classics with their sleigh bells and uplifting key changes on the radio and in all the shops. How about we embrace some mystery, some dark and let the unknown in....

Carol of the Bells is an old Ukrainian carol, and so it felt right to celebrate it this year, after all that poor country and its people have been through. It has such a simple melodic motif and it works perfectly plucked through a loop pedal....Then the underlying bass line echos the ringing of bells, and for this performance and recording I sampled one of the big gongs of the Gamelan (I am falling so in love with!) and set it to be controlled by a midi foot pedal.

Enjoy the video above, recorded live in one take on a rig powered by a phone battery, in the stairwell of DeBarra’s Folk Club, my local venue and spiritual home. If you’d like to receive the studio recording as a download as well as a video showing how I put the battery powered loop rig together, head to the Patreon site.

Or click here to get the whole Christmas collection at bandcamp - pay what you like…

CHRISTMAS RECORD ON BANDCAMP

OTHER MUSIC PROJECTS FROM 2023

Part of my varied work as a composer is with the Arts for Health team here in West Cork, Ireland, as resident composer in the Skibbereen Community Hospital working week in and week out with older residents of the hospital to engage with their own musical creativity and create work that honours their voices. Its a truly wonderful project and I am enriched by these people in all of my musical practice - I’m learning so much about what it means to be alive, to create meaning and connection, to be creative in so many different ways that aren’t celebrated in the mainstream. So I wanted to share a film I helped to make this year called ‘Last Train to Nowhere’ which is a collaboration of poetry, soundscape, film, drawing and animation, and was premiered at the national Bealtine Festival in May

Work in progress - I’m currently working with director Philippa Donnellan, dancer Justine Cooper (pictured in the window!) and photographer Tomasz Madajczak on a new dance work to be performed in 2024….And I am not just composing the score but also being pulled into the dance itself!

Another really wonderful project was composing and recording the score for this beautiful feature length film by Aoife Desmond called ‘Bury Our Hearts At The Bend of the River’. It was all shot on 16mm film and hand processed, and follows the River Lee from its source in the mountains, through the city of Cork to where it meets the sea at Rochestown Point. I created the score using a minimal sound palette which melds with field recordings I processed. I will be showing some of my working process in videos on the patreon site next year….. So if you’d like to know more about the composing process do join the patreon and say hello!

ON MY BOOKSHELF….

I have a nice little system these days for finding good books - in my attempts to limit the influence and control of social media I signed up for various mailing lists from artists/writers/bookshops that I admire and want to hear from - then every week or month I get an inspiring email to read, rather than the endless scrolling! Bookshop.org is great and supports independent bookshops rather than Amazon - and they send a weekly email with reading recommendations. I see books I might enjoy and then I order them from my local library on their app.

‘The Practicing Mind’ is a very practical guide to practicing well - something I have spent most of my life trying to do in music, but also now helping my homeschooling son learn - its also about finding happiness in the process rather than the goal. A very important part of creativity in all its forms!

A friend of mine had told me she was reading ‘Turlough’ by Irish writer Brian Keenan and seeing as I frequently play the music of Turlough O’Carolan, the blind harper and composer  from 18th century Ireland, I had to get my hands on this book. Apparently the spirit of Carolan visited Keenan many times while he was in captivity as a hostage in Beruit and so on his release he wanted to write as an offer of thanks.

Finally, ‘How Modern Media Destroys Our Minds’ is from a series of incredible books created by ‘The School of Life’ - a collective of philosophers, psychotherapists, artists etc. I have been reading ‘Big Ideas for Curious Minds’ and ‘What Adults Don’t Know About Art’ with my son and we are loving them. This one I read myself and its a clarion call to retreat from the onslaught of hate/envy/hype/catastrophy/depression that the modern media and social media is designed to create, and forge a more quiet, slow, happier, less sharable life.

(If you’re interested in this, another great writer and thinker on this topic is Jaron Lanier with ‘Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now’)

Wishing you all a very peaceful Christmas season.

Justin

November 23 Newsletter

November 2024

Dear friends,

Welcome to the dark season! Here in our little creative town in the South West of Ireland we have an extraordinary festival every November for Samhain where artists, performers, dancers, composers, mask makers and philosophers all share their talents to celebrate this time of the year and embrace the dark.

SAMHAIN (pronounced 'sow-win') is the first of four traditional festivals on the old Irish calendar celebrating the arrival of Winter. Traditionally, Winter is celebrated as the first, not the last season of the Celtic year; the darkness from which all light emerges. This was a philosophy that carried into all areas of our lives.

Every people have enshrined in their culture a special time of year when the gates of perception are flung open and otherworldly spirits walk among the living. As a festival of birth, death and ancestral ceremony, Samhain stands on this threshold between worlds. This is also a time when our ancestral wildness has an opportunity to emerge; A chance to engage with and to celebrate the primordial wildness that dwells inside each of us.

This year the organisers of the festival approached me with the invitation to create a musical collaboration with the local Gamelan orchestra (GAMELAN - is a traditional instrumental ensemble from Java and Bali, made up predominantly of bronze percussion instruments). I was of course super inspired to do something crazy. Here is a wonderful video of the collaboration:

Many thanks go to my community on patreon whose support helped this video come into being - its wonderful for me to be making these projects with little funding from elsewhere, but knowing that I have a community of patrons whose financial (from $3/month support as well as ideas and comments and general encouragement spur me on to make them happen! If you’d like to join the community, do head over to the link below - there’s loads more info on how we made the music and monthly music and videos/blogs to feast on!

TRIPLE SPIRAL NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM OR PURCHASE

After a fantastic launch show at the Hunt Museum in Limerick on Culture Night in September, our film ‘Triple Spiral’ is now available to stream or purchase on the Now and Then Media website. Featuring one of my brand new works for harpsichord/violin/viola da gamba and the mesmerising contemporary dance of Yumi Lee, it’s a hypnotic and energising performance film we made in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick back in July.

Stream TRIPLE SPIRAL

ON MY BOOKSHELF….

‘Mastery’ by Robert Greene is an illuminating and detailed analysis of some of the great masters of their art over history - from Da Vinci to John Coltrane - and the patterns and stages they went through to become what they were. It is an inspiring read which spurs me on to practice well, stay inquisitive and seek mentors at all stages of my development.

‘What I know About Running Coffee Shops’ is brilliantly written by Colin Harmon, Irish champion barista and the owner of my favourite coffee shop in Dublin for many years, 3fE - where Pearse McGloughlin and I would wind down over an espresso while on tour with Idiot Songs….Although I have no intention of ever starting a coffee shop, I love good coffee and am fascinated by the things other people do for work - there’s a lot to learn from everyone!

And wow Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ is stunning - some sentences of this book I wanted to hold in my mouth and my mind for days, so beautiful and fragrant were they, I took snapshots of pages stored into my iPhone:

“We sang, nearly shouting the lyrics, the wind clipping at our voices. They say a song can be a bridge, Ma. But I say it’s also the ground we stand on. And maybe we sing to keep ourselves from falling. Maybe we sing to keep ourselves.'“

Keep singing,

Justin

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