Nordhalla – Laura Cannell Fiddle Solo improvisation

This piece was improvised and recorded in one take in Covehithe church in January 2016 in preparation for the Mythos of Violins collaboration on the Suffolk coast. Covehithe church is located on the top of a fast eroding cliff  just 250 metres from the shoreline and is a small parish church within the walls of the great medieval church of St Andrew which was ruined during the Civil War.
Covehithe was known in the Domesday book as Nordhalla and is said to be haunted by a white faceless lady dressed in a traditional shroud. I played this piece while thinking about the Mythos of Violins project and how landscape and location affect the sound and outcome. It’s only ever afterwards that the story of the piece emerges, but seems to make sense. By allowing the environment in, it feels as though the haunted nature (whether real or imagined) of the place always seems to emerge through the sound – especially in instant composition or improvised performance.
This is where a sense of folklore and experimentalism come together, for me it’s the unavoidable integration of sounds and surround(ings).

Nordhalla - Laura Cannell

Improvised piece created and performed by Douglas MacGregor during a two day visit at Lle Celf Capel Y Graig Artspace, Furnace, Ceredigion. The piece takes its name from the river Einion which flows by the Capel.

Afon Einion - Douglas Macgregor - Capel Y Graig - 2016

Recorded 6.1.16 in Wangford Church, Suffolk. Based on fragments from a French renaissance song.

Blackwater - Laura Cannell

Lively & reflective 3rd movement of the Piano Quintet (2003).
Bartlomiej Kominek - piano, 'Camerata' String Quartet.
Live recording: 'Warsaw Autumn 2004', Warsaw, Concert Hall of The F. Chopin Academy of Music, 16th of September 2004.
1st Award, Tadeusz Baird State Competition in Poland, 2004.

Pawel Strzelecki: 3. Finale [Piano Quintet (2003)].

Live on BBC R3's In Tune, 22 June 2012 with Vasilis Sarikis on Percussion 

Khyam Allami - Tawazon I: Balance (Live on BBC R3)

One of many solo guitar compositions written between 2009 and 2011.  Recorded in a church in place called Bagemühl somewhere in the north of Germany by Sebastian Ohmert in August 2012.  Was released as part of an EP, of the same name, on the 26th of November 2012.  
Watch a performance of this song recorded at the abandoned sanatorium Beelitz Heilstätten: https://vimeo.com/91980528 


A Testament to Subsided Days - with video

Project supported by Sound and Music's ‘Interpreting Isolation’ Grants  

Project diary - https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/63386314/gong-girl-still-there-project-diary

Gong Girl - Still There

www.douglasmacgregormusic.com

Guitar player / composer Douglas MacGregor creates instrumental pieces that appear in the gaps between classical, folk and experimental music. It’s music that explore place, space, acoustics, roots, memory and loss.  
 
For booking, information, inquisitiveness, musical scores etc. e-mail: doug_macgregor@hotmail.com

For Songs of Loss of Healing with accompanying text:
https://www.songsoflossandhealing.com/amusiciansjourneythroughgrief

Some links:
www.douglasmacgregormusic.com
www.songsoflossandhealing.com
Some songs:
 www.soundcloud.com/dmacg