By Phil Jarratt
As the years roll by it’s becoming clearer that, in addition to all the pain and misery, some great things came out of the Covid-19 pandemic: take, for example, local musician Andrea Kirwin’s upcoming tour of some of the world’s most amazing vocalists and instrumentalists, brought together through on-line forums when no one could perform live.
This is a story that began back in 2009 when Fijian-Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrea created Peace Run Records to foster, record and tour local Sunshine Coast musicians across several genres, but in a sense it begins all over again next month when an East Coast tour managed by Peace Run and headlined by four Americans, acclaimed as “the most exciting vocal group in a generation” by Songlines magazine, kicks off at The Majestic Theatre, Pomona.
Windborne’s Old Songs, Bold Harmony Australian tour will also feature Californian Celtic harpist Christina Tourin, whose International Harp Therapy workshops are frequent around the world but whose live concert performances are rare gems, as well as Andrea and long-time partner (and wife since last year) Claire Evelynn supporting. “But,” says Andrea, “we will all play together as well as apart. It’s first and foremost a collaboration, and a celebration of the power of the human voice and the magic of the Celtic harp.”
Which brings us back to the Covid collaboration which has made it possible to see and hear the Boston-based traditional quartet with a cross-generational global fan base (check their TikTok following!) and the world’s most famous Celtic harpist right here in our ‘hood. To hear the story last week I ventured out to the funky end of Nambour’s CBD and the enchanting office/studio of Peace Run Records, complete with a red satin-curtained mini-stage. In this crowded space, surrounded by emblems of her musical passions, Andrea Kirwin performs, records, teaches, promotes and manages artists like Americana, jazz and blues sensation Jen Mize, and programs concerts and festivals, including Woodford, Caloundra and Maleny. She’s a busy girl, but it was at their least busy time, at the height of Covid lockdowns, that she and Claire found new directions.
Over coffee Andrea says: “Our connection with Windborne and Christina Tourin came at around the same time when Claire started studying Celtic harp and harp therapy with Christina online in 2021. Later Claire would study with her in person in Victoria and become great friends, but in the early stages I signed up to a thing called Global Music Match, which is an online collaborative music program put together by Sounds Australia, the export agency of the Australia Council, partnering with Showcase Scotland Expo and Canada’s East Coast Music Association. Normally Sounds Australia holds satellite events for Australian musicians in places like New York and London, but because of Covid there was no export happening, so Global Music Match was created in 2020.
“For the 2021 edition I was one of 13 Australian artists selected in a global group of 76, split into smaller groups under 14 different coaches, many of them programmers for huge events like Glastonbury, Vancouver Island Folk, New Orleans Jazz and our Woodford and Port Fairy Folk. Our coach was from Montelago Celtic Festival in Italy, and in my group were an amazing flute player from England whose day job was playing in the orchestra at The Lion King in the West End, a trio from Sweden and a vocal quartet from Boston called Windborne. I’d never heard of them!”
That soon changed. Says Andrea: “We’d get together online twice a week and just start playing music, joining in on each other’s songs and recording them. I soon discovered how amazing it was to have the harmonies of a vocal group behind your song. That was the start of our collaboration.”
In 2022 Andrea was invited to speak about Peace Run Records at a music conference in Canada, so she made a side trip to WOMEX, the world music expo, where Windborne was one of the showcase acts. She recalls: “Listening to them perform live, I realised how much I’d been affected by negative media about the US over such a long time, and I didn’t appreciate that this subculture of traditional music, which has risen up alongside a commitment to social justice, was so alive and strong. It was stirring and it was wonderful, and I knew I wanted to work with these guys.”
Over the intervening 18 months Andrea has become close to Windborne members Lauren Breunig, Jeremy Carter-Gordon, Lynn Rowan, and Will Rowan, particularly with Jeremy, the baritone who doubles as band manager. She says: “Jeremy is a promotions genius. When we were putting this tour together, through TikTok and other platforms he produced all the numbers for how many followers they had in every city we were looking at including. But there’s also a strong family connection through the group. They only started touring in 2017 but they’ve been playing music together as friends and then life partners for a long time. The roots of their music came not out of churches but more from community choral groups and a trad background. They’ve studied polyphonic singing for 20 years and Corsican singing as well. They find old songs and do a lot of research into how they came about and what they meant to the people who sang them, and then they make their own arrangements and put them in a contemporary context.”
In the seven years they’ve been touring (including five UK tours) the quartet has won over both audiences and critics. Said Songlines: “Windborne’s captivating show draws on the singers’ deep roots in traditions of vocal harmony, while their artistic approach brings old songs into the present. Known for the innovation of their arrangements, their harmonies are bold and anything but predictable. Windborne evokes a deep emotional response connecting their audience to the past, distant places and themselves.”
And Gig Blog: “Audiences and critics lavish praise upon the singers not only for their technical mastery, but for the passion, engagement, and connection with each other and the audience that imbues each performance with a rare power. But there’s another, crucial dimension to Windborne that guides and roots their artistry. They are adherents to folk music’s long-time alliance with social activism, labour and civil rights, movements that champion the oppressed, the poor, and the disenfranchised.”
Support musician Christina Tourin is an educator, healer, author and speaker who captures and preserves folk tales and traditions in her recordings, many Celtic and Gaelic, and is also inspired by 18th and 19th Century composers such as Vivaldi, Handel, Satie, Ravel and Debussy. Of her 2023 album release Geodepédie – Hidden Light, JWVibe noted: “Her music is like looking into the crystalline light of a newly opened geode; one can see the relationship of the night sky filled with glittering stars, planets and galaxies.”
Although they have been travelling and performing at festivals together since meeting in 2008, Andrea Kirwin and Claire Evelynn’s duo show began with a Woodford Folk Festival small halls tour in 2021. The combination of Celtic harp and Andrea’s soulful, heartfelt original songs, which she performs on vocals, guitar, harmonica, cigar box guitar and stomp, has been described by many as a spellbinding.
Tickets are on sale now for Windborne and friends’ Sunshine Coast shows at The Majestic Theatre, Pomona on Friday 8 March, and Eudlo Hall on Saturday 9 March. Visit peacerunrecords.com/ontour
