Artists, Friends & Inspirations
Here I share with you some friends and colleagues for whom I’m very grateful. These are people who have touched my life deeply and have been a source of inspiration and kindness to me. You know there are people in your life, that you wonder where you might be without them, well here are some of mine ……..
Sheila Jordan
I love this photo! Here’s Sheila singing with her long-time collaborator, bassist Cameron Browne. This was at Sheila’s 90th Birthday at Pizza Express in London, November 18, 2018. What a party it was!!! I was thrilled to be there .. Sheila is a very dear friend, inspiration and mentor. She’s always been so encouraging and practically helpful to me and I’m ever grateful. She’s also a LOT of fun and I’ve had some of the best laughs of my life with Sheila!!
Melanie Bong
Here’s another dear, dear friend of mine, also an inspiration who has also been so good to me. I met Melanie .. well it feels like 100 years ago when I timidly began to sing out a bit and I used to busk on the streets in Munich! From other musicians who stopped to listen, I learned that Munich had some great jazz clubs … so one evening, I took my busking spoils to buy a ticket to hear a jazz singer called Melanie Bong at the Unterfahrt, Jazz Club. I was enchanted. As ever, I had my journal with me and was writing away as I listened to Melanie. Afterwards, and I don’t know where I got the gumption to do this, I thanked her for her beautiful performance —and asked, would she give me some lessons? I hadn’t planned to ask that at all. Anyway, Melanie said she didn’t really do that anymore and we parted. Then suddenly she called me back …. “for you, I would,” she said! Later she told me that she had seen me around, singing or my head in my journal, furiously scribbling and she just got a good feeling.
Melanie taught me how to write charts. She also taught me to “trust my voice..” and when I was leaving Munich, she gave me, what for me was a BIG BIG gift, a pile of jazz charts. This is before the days of iRealB so getting a whole catalogue of charts was major in helping me move forward as a singer.
Melanie also introduced me to Sheila Jordan!! And so we both went to see her in London in 2018, the legend who inspires us both. Melanie has a CD coming out with Sheila soon! Check her out!
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Cathrine Legardh
Cat is another very dear friend of mine and inspiration. I met Cat along at Vermont Jazz Camp in 2006! A long time ago now. I had got a scholarship. Cat was staying on in New York afterwards to go to jazz gigs and sing in jam sessions after and she told me it would a very good idea for me to do the same, if I could find somewhere to stay. As life and love would have, I did find somewhere to stay and we spent a charmed 2? weeks practising together during the days and haunting all the jazz clubs. Pretty much lived off cheese rolls and some cheap gin!! Cat also tried to teach me to speak up a little more about my disability….. I am getting better at that.
Fionna Duncan
Cathrine Legardh from Copenhagen and Cathie Rae from Edinburgh whom I met on the course at Vermont in August 2006, not only introduced me to the jazz scene in Edinburgh and Copenhagen but also saw to it that the wonderful Scottish Jazz vocalist Fionna Duncan came into my life and music. For many years she was mentor, teacher and role model to me. I spent many cozy musical, storied evenings full of laughter together with her and her partner, bassist, Ronnie Rae, by their fire at their house, aptly called The Nest, as it truly was, in Portincaple. Fionna sadly passed in 2022. Thank you dear Fionna, you were so generous with your wisdom and your heart.
Tim McDonnell
As I was finishing my degree in English and German from TCD I was really begining to wonder what might come next for me. Through attempting various student jobs, I had began to grasp that my visual impairment might really prove a barrier to employment. That hard work and enthusiasm might not cut it in the real, money driven competitive world.
Somehow, and I don’t recall how exactly, I was “guided” to enroll in an acting class. The teacher was Tim McDonnell. Now, in retrospect maybe I can trace every creative risk I’ve taken and the career I have now, back to the gift of studying acting with Tim McDonnell.
With a fiercely incisive intellect and artistic brilliance Tim taught the Stanislavsky method as he himself had studied it and practised it, directly from the Focus Theatre and Deirdre O'Connell. This mean that we learned not only the method, but what I consider equally important for Irish Theatre, we learned about the Focus Theatre and Deirdre O'Connell.
Ever since his accident in the 80s,Tim has been a wheelchair user. Tim described himself to me all those years ago as a “non-walking actor.” Tim opened my eyes to the idea that perhaps in art, my lived experience of disability, of difference, might not hold me back but in fact be of practical use, that it might in fact inspire creativity.