Folk Radio interviews Eliza Marshall and Donal Rogers (of Ranagri) about Eliza’s ‘Freedom to Roam: The Rhythms Of Migration’ project, a new album of entirely self-penned original works and a short documentary film exploring the challenges and frustrations of the forbidden freedoms within humanity, the exploitation of land and animals. The mission of the project is to open ideas and conversations about our interconnected worlds and to encourage hope and aspiration towards a better future for all living things.
How and when did ‘Freedom To Roam: The Rhythms Of Migration’ first come about and what is its connection to folk music?
Eliza: Essentially this project was thought up a couple of years ago as something that we just really wanted to do, to use music as a platform, to harness fresh ideas, trying to look for positive ways forward, to do with humanitarian concerns, the environment and wildlife.
Donal: Chatting after gigs as musicians do, the topic of refugees or the issue of animals would come up in separate conversations and then we started to realise that these things are all interconnected and impact on each other. When you put it into the mix and start stirring it up in the mixing bowl then you begin to realise there’s a project there that has everything in it.
Eliza: I suppose that the pandemic itself was the big catalyst. As musicians, at the beginning, there was a feeling of what can we do, how can we be useful? Of course, we can volunteer, we can help, but our skill has no use at the moment, we can’t actually save people’s lives, and you feel a bit useless. However, throughout the pandemic, I’ve come round to thinking that music has been an integral part of helping people survive lockdowns. Music is such a powerful vehicle, it’s the first language and we are really skilled across the whole sector and we can use those skills in a positive way.
Within this project, the music is completely instrumental and in a way that ties in nicely with the accompanying documentary because both of those forms of art can portray what you want to say, and I suppose in the great tradition of folk music, as well, it’s trying to tell tales, the news and current issues, a role which folk music did so well before we had modern media, and that’s we’ll be trying to do.
So although the idea was born a couple of years ago, it’s really been during this time that we’ve actually had the opportunity to say ‘we’ve got the time to focus on it’.
In addition to Eliza, (flute and whistles), whose cross-genre work has seen her perform with the likes of Peter Gabriel, The Who and a plethora of orchestras, in a variety of shows such as the Lion King, Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, together with recording numerous soundtracks for the likes Ridley Scott and Peter Johnson, other illustrious musicians involved here include Jackie Shave (violin) Leader of The Britten Sinfonia, Catrin Finch (harp) winner of BBC 2 Folk Radio Award for best duo, Kuljit Bhamra (tablas) award-winning record producer & MBE for services to Bhangra and British Asian Music, Donal Rogers (guitars and bass) lead singer and writer Ranagri, Robert Irvine (cello) Director Red Note Ensemble, Lydia Lowndes-Northcott (viola) Tippett Quartet, Joby Burgess (percussion), Andrew Morgan composer, orchestrator, along with Nicolas Jones, the award-winning documentary maker.
How did you select the creatives involved, and what strengths did they bring?
Eliza: This ties in with the folk music connection. I studied with Catrin Finch, the harpist who plays with Seckou Keita, and I toured with Jackie Shave, leader of the Britten Sinfonia, with Peter Gabriel, so I had big connections with both of those people as friends as well as players. So with regards to choosing those creatives, it just seemed that there was no question that Katrin and Jackie would be right for this particular project. Yes, all three of us were all at the Royal Academy of Music, we’re all classically trained, but actually, that’s not our primary focus, we completely play with people from so many different traditions and different styles of music and that I think you are going to see in this project. Also on-board, for example, are Ade Thioune¸ the Senegalese mbalax musician, and percussionist Pino Petraccia, both of whom now live in Italy.
Then there’s Kuljit. We’ve played with him before and he’s worked with Jackie a lot, and again he breaks the boundaries of the Indian tradition, he wants Indian music to be more accessible and by so doing to bring people together a bit, and I also like this common desire to push boundaries.
So what’s been amazing with this particular group is that it’s very much cross-genre, so it plays on exactly what this project represents and what I love about music and life. It’s not saying you are this, so you do this, or you’re this, so you do that, it’s saying you can completely cross-connect in a way, and that’s what we want to see more of, the connection of people and connection of understanding of one another.
Did the music come together specifically for the project or was it written over a longer period?
Eliza: It’s all been written this year basically, so when the idea was being formed I knew which people I thought would love to be part of it, so that part was quite clear, which gives you a soundscape, it’s like knowing your colours, so we knew which colours and palette we had but didn’t have the music written, and actually, we’re all quite busy musicians so there’s this funny sort of contradiction, of it’s a terrible year but it’s also a time to harness exactly what we’ve done and get things written. Of course, some of it is still in the process of being written, but it’s certainly all lock-down infused.
The desire to keep wildlife in the wild is clearly of prime importance, in what ways will human displacement, whether through climate change, conflict or other factors, manifest itself?
Eliza: Our association with Born Free Foundation is a really wonderful one because they are such a lovely, small foundation and they have been extremely supportive of this project, so we’re really proud to be associated with them and they’re hosting the launch event, which will be a fund-raiser for them. However, it’s important to us that because we’re associated with them it doesn’t mean the project is simply to do with wildlife, it is also very much concerned with the exploitation of land and its impact.
Donal: For example, when we visited Virginia McKenna to make a short promo video for the project, (watch it below), and she made reference to people being imprisoned in their high-rise apartments and high-rise blocks, this resonated totally with us, people are locked in as well as, in the disadvantaged sense, being locked out.
Eiza: We are really keen that this is not a preachy project, but one where you can share ideas with people. Music is what makes people feel things, so if you share a message and attach music to it you can dive far deeper than just using words. We are keen to not have any politicians involved in anything we’re saying, as the last thing we want to do is alienate anybody so that we can try to get rid of any polarisation and appeal to whichever side of the camp wants to listen to us.
As you watch the news and you see all the problems with climate change and refugees all brought about simply because of things that we’ve done, we always seem to be creating the problem, whether that’s to do with war and conflict, or with where places are becoming less habitable. ‘The Rhythms of Migration’ was an ideal title for us, everything is always moving, it’s brilliant to move, humans are very migratory, but we can’t just move and not take care of who or what we’re displacing. The connectivity is so important, we have to be really assured that we look after each other, not just humans but all species. The human has to be part of that chain, not aloof from it, so wherever we move, however, we migrate, we must have this awareness.
Specifically, within the project, it’s about how to inspire people about the things that can be done and how we can all do them if there is a desire, rather than ‘this is wrong’ and ‘that’s wrong’ and ‘we’re doing all these terrible things’. Are we going to wait until there is such a catastrophe that we’re too late or are we going to go ‘actually we’re so capable, we’re such a capable species, humans are, that we can implement many of very these positive ways forward’?
What are the most challenging aspects of the project?
Eliza: Essentially endeavouring to meet up physically and trying to fund the project. This is completely self-funded at the moment, so enabling something like this to happen when there aren’t any funds coming in is why we’ve put a Kickstarter together, which feels really weird as well because we’ve never done anything like that, so it’s a strange feeling to reach out to people to help with that, but it’s just the nature of the way the year’s turned out, so I would say that’s one of the most daunting aspects. Equally problematic has been the issues related to the musicians rehearsing and working together, because of Covid, which is just an added expense and frustration. I’ve been booking the studios and calling people and trying to arrange things and then another lockdown comes in and you then have to cancel all of that, we’ve had to change all of our recording dates a couple of times already and we’ve had to meet up somewhere that is Covid regulated. St George‘s, in Bristol, have been very supportive, but it’s added to the challenges, shall we say. You have to just be very patient and flexible, which is challenging. It’s frustrating, but again I think everyone has learnt that it’s the nature of the beast for this year. The original launch date and venue have had to be re-scheduled too, and now we are looking at releasing the album at the end of November, with a launch show at Cecil Sharp House in December.
What are you most looking forward to?
Eliza: I can answer that straight away. it’s so brilliant to be able to look forward to playing with musicians again, performing not only something that we’ve all written during this time but knowing that you’ve done it with a particular message behind it, with all these things supporting it which we feel so strongly about. I just know that that’s going to be an overwhelmingly emotional thing to do.
Were there any unexpected, unplanned by-products that have emerged from the project?
Eliza: Yes. So many of us had to become really proficient technologically in home recordings and using video making software, we’ve each been individually recording bits of music sending it over, stuff flying through the ether. Of course, I haven’t loved this year, but I’ve loved seeing how adaptable people have had to become and how innovative people are and also I feel that people are very, very supportive of one another and that we’d lost a little bit of that in our culture and it feels like everybody suddenly seems to have been in a particular position together and we’re suddenly going ‘right how can we be there for one another and help?’ and I find that very heart-warming.
Could you tell us a little about the documentary?
Eliza: We feel privileged to be working with the multi-award-winning young director, Nicholas Jones, (Greenlander), who is no stranger to focusing on crucial issues. He really embraces all of the topics that we’ve been talking about and he’s going to tie those all together in a new, especially created documentary. Also, in as well as Virginia McKenna, we are also privileged to have contributions from Will Travers, and Youssou N’Dour.
In the context of live performances, what can the audiences look forward to?
Eliza: In addition to the music, which is going to be very Worldy and folk-influenced, the event will open with this documentary, to give the flavours to everybody. There will then be a short interval and following this, we will play the album in its entirety. We wanted that slightly cinematic idea that this will just run, that it isn’t just a set of individual pieces, but rather that they’re all connected.
Essentially the most important thing we are aiming for is that whilst we’re touching on all these subjects, some of which are quite heavy, that we want to leave people feeling uplifted. Our approach, similar in many ways to that of David Attenborough, will be ‘here we are guys this is what’s going on, look where we could go together if we want to. Let’s embark on this journey together, because we’re all brilliant, humans are amazing, we’ve got an amazing planet, let’s do something’. So we want people to leave our gig feeling inspired, uplifted and also maybe pro-active in terms of being in a movement of people actually being together saying ‘yes we can do this’.
More details of the ‘Freedom To Roam: The Rhythms Of Migration’ Project, can be found on the Kickstarter page here.
Pledges to enable the project to reach its goal can be made until Thursday, April 1 2021 10:00 PM BST.
