Button accordion, fiddle, bagpipe, electric guitar, bodhran, nyckelharpa, recorder, lute, bouzouki, bass; voice in lead, harmony, and chorus: these are some of the sounds Jennifer Cutting brings in when she is composing. The time of winter has been a recent subject for her imagination, as she’s written and arranged music for her group, the Ocean Orchestra, for the album Song of Solstice: celtic music for midwinter.
“I love performing, but recording is definitely my favorite artistic medium, maybe because it doesn’t vanish into thin air!” Cutting says. “ It's a way to capture and preserve elusive moments of great beauty. That’s why I started my own production company, SunSign. I think of myself as a soundscape architect -- I try to get the structures and textures from my imagination out onto the recorded sound canvas, with the help of many amazingly gifted people who all add their own genius into the mix. Creating a song or an arrangement is a lot like putting up a building or designing a landscape, except that my materials are instruments and voices. Hearing it build layer by layer is the ultimate thrill.”
With the music on Song of Solstice, those layers might be sparely conceived arrangements, such as the one for Christmas Day in the Morning, which opens the collection. This is a melody from Shetland off the far north coast of Scotland, brought to being here by Celtic harp and bodhran. The title track Song of Solstice on the other hand finds more than two dozen musicians joining in on a lively song Cutting wrote, one which celebrates the work of winter along with the promise of spring, and the gifts of the journeys which take us between the two. One of the verses says
Troubles of the old year past
Burning in the oaken fire
Making way for greater gifts
Glowing with our hearts’ desire
and the chorus is
Raise the song of solstice high
Through the wind and weather
Welcome Yule with frost and fire
And sing we all together!
Cutting has deep interest and background in Celtic music, and in classical and other sorts of music as well. Her interest in mixing folk genres and creating electro folk, folk rock, classical meets Celtic, and other sorts of combinations has led her to a unique, and award winning, place in the world of music. Cutting first came to national attention as the bandleader of the Washington DC are based British folk rock group The New Saint George, and after that group came to an end, her work with Ocean, as an orchestra, a quartet, and in other configurations drawing on the talents of DC area musicians has won many Washington Area Music Awards (WAMA). She has won acclaim for her composing and songwriting as well.
On Song of Solstice, there are six Cutting originals woven in with music from Celtic traditions. Each is imagined in a different way and each stands on its own while making a strong contribution to the whole. Time to Remember the Poor is a Victorian broadside of lyric for which Cutting envisioned a melody and a setting that would be sort of a Gothic steam punk fusion, and the song turns out to be a rather stately piece that does evoke just that atmosphere. Green Man draws both from the Celtic respect for the male spirits as well as the idea of flourishing though winter time. Quelle est cette odeur agreeable is a gently imagined and gently sung carol from France, while Light the Winter Dark is a piece which celebrates the light and wisdom that spiritual figures , and we ourselves, bring to the earth and to each other. To add a bit of a laugh, put the disc in your computer and see the extra video called Bah Humbug!
“Every record I make will probably be radically different -- I need to keep reinventing myself, and, artistically, I’m a cluster of split personalities! But my first allegiance is to my imagination,“ Cutting says. “I think that writing music is an exercise in learning to listen to things that are beyond the five senses we know.”
Song of Solstice is an album that’s worth the listening through the winter season and at any time of year. Joining Cutting on the album are regular members of Ocean including Lisa Moscatiello on voice, whistles, and guitar, Zan MacLeod on bouzouki, Steve Winick on voice, and Rico Petruccelli on bass. Cutting herself plays accordion, piano, and organ and adds backing vocals on several tracks. Among the guest artists are Sue Richards on Celtic harp, Al Petteway on guitar, and members of the Washington Revels in choral and harmony singing.
Kerry Dexter is the Music Editor at Wandering Educators
She writes about music, creative practice, Ireland, Scotland, and other things at Music Road, Strings, Perceptive Travel, and elsewhere. You may reach Kerry at music at wanderingeducators dot com.