Jenny Sturgeon has a number of tour dates coming up, including dates with Salt House this month (including Purbeck Valley Folk Festival) as well as Northern Flyway (with Inge Thomson) in September. She will also be taking her latest album on the road in November – The Living Mountain.
Last year saw the release of Salt House’s Huam, released on Hudson Records and also a Featured Album of the Month on Folk Radio (reviewed here). For those wondering, Huam relates to owls. In his album review, Thomas Blake opens: “In Amanda Thompson’s ‘A Scotch Dictionary of Nature’, Huam is defined as ‘the moan of an owl in the warm days of summer.’ It’s a wonderful word, a rich and fruity onomatopoeia that seems to have come fully-formed from the depths of the countryside, a sound with a hint of the supernatural about it, but also a hint of homeliness.”
Jenny has a PhD in the study of seabirds, and nature is never very far from her music. Northern Flyway, a collaboration with Inge Thomson, was an audio-visual production exploring the ecology, folklore, symbolism and mythology of birds and birdsong. It’s great that folks will get another opportunity to see this live and I strongly recommend that you try and catch one of the two dates next month (details below). Neil McFadyen reviewed their performance at The Tolbooth in 2018 here.
“a combination of sound and vision, fact and folklore, it is a remarkable, unique and fascinating live experience.” Neil McFadyen.
For her latest album, The Living Mountain, she turned her attention to the mountains…specifically the Cairngorms and Nan Shepherd. In his album review, Thomas Blake concludes:
The final track, Being, is an attempt to take something away from the mountains, to learn from their wisdom in order to ‘find out who we are’. It’s a simple message really, but an important one: wilderness is valuable. Not as a commodity but as something that is rooted in human consciousness but also something that dwarfs human consciousness. Nan Shepherd understood this paradox better than anyone, and her writing has found a perfect musical equivalent in Jenny Sturgeon’s stunning, snow-encrusted and sun-dappled songs. She has created a work of rare beauty: to hear The Living Mountain is to hear the song of the Cairngorms.
Jenny will be taking The Living Moutain on tour in November. The dates have only just been shared on her website, so some of those ticket links are yet to go live (dates below). I strongly suggest you keep an eye on her socials and sign up for her newsletter – there’s a sign-up at the bottom of her gig page here.
Songs of the Day: As Far North as Anything Grows / Pushing, Reaching, Falling, Replacing
Anyone that follows Jenny on Instagram will have noted her love of nature, and she is frequently making field recordings…or so she says.
Field recordings feature prominently in the work produced during her residency at the National Library of Scotland…
As Far North as Anything Grows and Pushing, Reaching, Falling, Replacing are our Songs of the Day. They were produced during Jenny’s residency at the National Library of Scotland during winter 2020-21. During the residency, Jenny ran creative music and writing workshops with 30 participants from across Scotland. These pieces are what resulted from that collaboration. Use headphones for the best listening experience. Both tracks are available as ‘free to download’ on Bandcamp. However, if you’d like to pay for the track, all profits will go to Highland rewilding charity Trees For Life: https://jennysturgeon.bandcamp.com/
See credits at the end of this article for details on each recording.
Jenny Sturgeon Tour Dates
Salt House
18th August 2021 – Under Canvas, Eden Court
21st August 2021 – Purbeck Valley Folk Festival
22nd August 2021 – Schtumm, Wiltshire
Northern Flyway
2nd September 2021 – The Met, Bury
3rd September 2021 – Eastgate Theatre, Peebles
The Living Mountain Tour
17th November 2021 – Eden Court, Inverness
18th November 2021 – Portgordon Village Hall, Moray
19th November 2021 – Crafts and Things, Glencoe
20th November 2021 – Universal Hall, Findhorn
22nd November 2021 – Hug and Pint, Glasgow
23rd November 2021 – Eastgate Theatre, Peebles
24th November 2021 – The Tree House Bookshop, Kenilworth
27th November 2021 – Thimblemill Library, Birmingham
28th November 2021 – Green Note, London
Ticket links and more details here: https://www.jennysturgeonmusic.com/gigs
SONG CREDITS
As far North As Anything Goes – Credits
Featuring the music, words and field recordings of
Shirley Barr
Diane Dewhurst
Essa Flett
Ed Hyatt
Perla Innocenti
Charity Johnson
Jo Middleton
Keith Munro
Pertti Palo
Emma Perring
Katie Hart Potapoff
Renzo Spiteri
Jenny Sturgeon
Martha Thomson
Kate Tyler
With additional bird recordings from Magnus Robb and The Sound Approach
Featuring the lectures of Professor James Holms Dickson
Recorded at home winter 2020/21, with additional recording by Tim Matthew at Mareel recording studio, Shetland.
Musical Director Jenny Sturgeon
Produced by Jenny Sturgeon and Tim Matthew
Mastered by Dean Honer
This recording features the following Tobar an Dualchais recordings
TRACK ID: 27451 featuring Unknown, recorded by John Graham
TRACK ID: 42183 featuring Katie Laurenson, recorded by Elizabeth Neilsen
TRACK ID: 27353 featuring Maggie Wilson, Jeems Wilson, recorded by John Graham
TRACK ID: 36449 featuring Norman Paterson, recorded by Morag MacLeod
TRACK ID: 27363 featuring Maggie Wilson, recorded by John Graham
Pushing, Reaching, Falling, Replacing – Credits
Featuring the music, words and field recordings of
Amy Beeston
Carol Beckwith
Will Boyd-Wallis
Daniel Clark
Amy Gear
J Kirkpatrick
Eilidh Macintyre
David Macfarlane
Lynsey Martin Kimmitt
Emma Neck
Aileen Ogilvie
Les Sinclair
Freya Stout
Jenny Sturgeon
Chloe Tallack
With additional bird recordings from Magnus Robb and The Sound Approach
Featuring the lectures of Professor James Holms Dickson
Recorded at home winter 2020/21, with additional recording by Tim Matthew at Mareel recording studio, Shetland.
Musical Director Jenny Sturgeon
Produced by Jenny Sturgeon and Tim Matthew
Mastered by Dean Honer
Film by Freya Stout
This recording features the following Tobar an Dualchais recordings
TRACK ID: 32650 featuring Brucie Henderson, recorded by Calum Iain Maclean
TRACK ID: 75482 featuring Christine Morrison, Jean Morrison, recorded by Alan J. Bruford
TRACK ID: 81445 featuring Tom Tulloch, recorded by Alan J. Bruford