It’s a fairly unusual thing to be attending a gig where all the background on the reasoning for the collaboration and what each of the parts of the equation, folk group The Breath and the larger ensemble that is Paraorchestra, brings to the collaboration has been well established. This is one of those occasions, though, thanks to the superb interview that can be found here. So, entering into the well-sold Barbican Hall, it was with a certain certainty of what was to come: the emotive singing of Ríoghnach Connolly, the imaginative playing of guitarist Stuart McCallum, and all given a “fuller” sound by Paraorchestra. After all, we’ve all seen and heard what a folk group backed by an orchestra is like. The same, but given a wall of sympathetic strings or shining brass on strident songs.
It’s great to have expectations shredded; safe to say this was no folk band given a touch of “classical approval”: not that there is anything wrong with that, it can add so much extra colour to well-known music. But this was a fuller musical collaboration, with the seated The Breath fully embedded in the heart of Paraorchestra, and also a thought-out audiovisual experience, with the lighting fully part of the experience. There was even a dramatic musical interpreter on stage left.
There’s drama from the start with All That You Have Been fusing all these elements together, Connolly’s vocal rising and falling like a sea crashing against rocks, Paraorchestra raising the tension on a sing which questions if history books really allow victors to tell just the story, or does folk memory recall events despite them allowing “our children bathed in blood, who will howl for their homes” to pass on another truth?
And then another surprise – conductor Charles Hazlewood was keen on audience interaction – explaining what drew him to the collaboration, with his purpose being to see if he could find connections between Paraorchestra and The Breath, adding as an aside that what they also brought was an unusual array of instrumentation with bass flutes and the often orchestrally unloved euphonium. And it was, of course, these very deep bass instruments that drove the dark and powerful sounds of the evening. He’d later add, in another very enthusiastic interaction, that the evening’s concept, named Symbiosis, had grown “from the seed up” to make something that was more than just shoe-horning an orchestra into an existing aural frame.
Following up with two songs back to back, Harvest was a much quieter affair, but still full of tension as it contrasts a strong connection to a place that is not able to endure, “the land is not enough to feed you.” It’s a diaspora tale pitched through the emotional separation from a place that still so informs self. This deeply felt sense of loss carries forward into Only Stories, which suggests that the only true emotionally resonant truths that have come down to Ríoghnach Connolly are from the “stories that my mother told me“, providing connections so real and yet unexperienced.
A brief question-and-answer session between Hazlewood and Connolly was, sadly, a little indistinct, but the music continued just fine. Keep It Safe floated like thoughts on the wind, carried by the orchestra’s strings and woodwinds, and Untie Me Now was a slightly jazz-inflected meditation – both beautiful. There’d be many moments that could claim to be the highlight of the evening, but the gorgeous Cliona’s Wave could make that claim, inspired by the goddess of healing who lost her powers when she shared them with the man she loved. It was also, Connolly shared, inspired by childhood holidays in Ireland. Right up there alongside it was Land Of My Other, another diaspora song given an additional dimension with the incorporation of evocative small pipes.
Musically diverse and musically powerful, with Ríoghnach Connolly’s emotive vocals a constant throughout, it was a ninety minutes that passed all too quickly. Of course, the songs were important, lyrics, guiding guitar from Stuart McCallum and the ensemble playing, but it was the tying up of all these threads that made it memorable. An evening that was part folk orchestral concert, part discussion of the importance of music and part full-on rock concert vibes with the banks of lights fully integral to the staging and the dramatic weight of the music. The standing ovation at the end was long and enthusiastic, perhaps more than was expected, for although there was not an encore for a while, it looked like there might be. If you get a chance to see this collective of talent, then embrace it.
