Performer Name: Carmenco
Show Name: From the Roots
Show Description
Emily Andrews (flutes) and David Massey (guitars) have reached down into their tangled musical roots and used their intuitive musicianship to create their own unique arrangements of folk songs from all over the British Isles. They let the music grow and evolve naturally, using improvisation and memory rather than written music, to respond to the aural tradition of folk music, while using the instrumental technique and beautiful sound from their classical training at the Royal Academy of Music. With flute and guitar, the words of the songs are lost, but they retain the songs’ meanings in the textures and atmospheres of the music, conjuring up the spirit of the words, like the ghost of Molly Malone still selling her cockles and mussels on the streets of Dublin… Like the best folk music, their playing brings together the old and the new: while some song arrangements are very simple with a single flute and guitar, for some songs they use a live loop pedal to record a base version, and then free themselves up to overdub improvised harmony parts and solos on different instruments, creating the widest range of colours to reflect the breadth of feeling, the light and shade, present in all folk music of the British Isles.
