Sixteen Frets
“Ronn McFarlane’s friend is the lute, and Carolyn Surrick’s viola da gamba her cherished soul. Integrating these two enduring instruments is significant and meaningful with an enlightenment to last a lifetime.”
The Baltimore Consort and Ensemble Galilei. Ayreheart and Trio Galilei. Early music and traditional music. Ronn McFarlane and Carolyn Surrick. And just for the record, let’s add Ellicott City and Annapolis.
Ronn McFarlane and Carolyn Surrick are masters of their instruments, compelling performers, and when working in collaboration, consummate musicians bringing music to life from Ireland and Scotland, and the Renaissance and Baroque.
One would be hard pressed to find two musicians whose musical journeys have been more parallel (and hail from Maryland.) Both of these distinguished artists have been champions of their respective instruments for decades – McFarlane on lute and Surrick on viola da gamba. Both are compelling performers, consummate musicians, and both have immersed themselves in music from the Renaissance and Baroque, music from Ireland and Scotland, and also compose new works.
Individually, they have been awarded, acclaimed, celebrated, and now finally, they have become musical partners in an extraordinary journey. While it is true that they toured for decades, traveled thousands of miles, slept in hundreds of hotels rooms, have been on stage in some of the most prestigious concert halls in this country, and recorded dozens of CDs, this new and unexpected partnership has been remarkable in every way. Their musicianship is impeccable, the ease with which they play together is stunning, and their music making is a joy to behold.
And So Flows The River
With Ronn McFarlane and Carolyn Surrick’s newest CD, And So Flows the River, the duo has taken the lute and viola da gamba away from the realm of the repertoire that you might expect from these ancient instruments, and moved into a land of pure music making.
If it’s true that people can resemble their dogs, it may also be true that having spent much of their lifetimes living and breathing their instruments, that these two have come to resemble them, if their compositions are any indication. McFarlane’s beautiful and crystalline tone on the lute is perfectly served by his original Clear Creek, which could have been heard on the front porch of his grandparent’s house in West Virginia. Where Mountains Meet the Sky creates a seemingly effortless, graceful, vision of the movement of air, wind, and clouds passing over mountain tops in the west, and while that tune expresses the fluid nature of time, W. Lee’s Reel owns a joyous, driving, rhythmic energy that is almost impossible to resist.
At the other end of the spectrum, Surrick’s sonic density is matched by crazy huge sound and the elongation of time that pours through Liane’s Ocean. She is fearless. Notes extend forever, silence is her friend. In Greenmount Avenue, a tribute to the beauty and darkness on the streets of Baltimore, the gamba wails and cries, and with an unexpected and unlikely resolution, leads to Over the Rainbow, which in this context seems more prayer than ballad.
Yes, they have also given a nod to their early music roots with John Dowland’s Lachrymae which is played with such depth and clarity that you feel you have never really heard it before, and Diego Ortiz’s Recercada Primera and Segunda, which Surrick infuses with an unexpected ferocity. But then the recording takes a turn and the lute and gamba sink into Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie. It turns again, and there’s the Shaker hymn, Beach Spring, turns again and opens up to The Water is Wide and Shenandoah.
Greenmount Ave from the new album And So Flows The River
With McFarlane’s brilliant arrangement of the Sinfonia from Bach’s Cantata 29 for lute and viola da gamba, he manages to change the cellular structure of what we think music can do, by bringing boundless joy and undeniable virtuosity. As the last notes of the Sinfonia ring out, the gamba lays stones on the ground, the earth upon which the lute begins I Wonder as I Wander, and just when you think you know something about that tune which is usually reserved for Christmas, the gamba sings her beautiful and inevitable song, and then they return.
How they have so beautifully taken threads from different traditions and made them into a single piece of cloth is a mystery. Their capacity to breathe life into, and commit to every note they play, is matched only by their willingness to partner with each other’s vision, the mark of true collaborators.
They are joined by Yousif Sheronick, whose masterful and varied percussion enhances this wildly beautiful sonic landscape – from Tar to Dumbek, from Riq to Udu, his extraordinary musical sensibility brilliantly informs this CD, in track after track.
There were twenty individual pieces to record, and there was more chocolate consumed that you can possibly imagine. In the end, this CD is, from the opening notes to the last ringing chords, a tribute to the genius and wisdom of these storied musicians. It takes courage and determination to succeed in a project which so pushes the boundaries of musical convention. Clearly, they have plenty of both.
For more information go to www.sixteenfrets.com.
A Star In The East
It is alchemy. While Ronn McFarlane, and Carolyn Surrick, have both had significant and brilliant careers, their remarkable partnership has led them to this newfound musical life —and that has led to a rethinking and recasting of what a holiday concert can be. Yes, there are favorite Christmas carols. Yes, there is virtuosity, and yes, there are unexpected musical surprises. But there is a journey here. There is wistful memory, there is shared history, there are new stories to tell, and there is joy—joy in the making of the music, joy in the celebration of the season, and joy in the sharing of it. The unspoken communication between these two master musicians is beautiful and deep.
The partnership of Ronn McFarlane, lute, and Carolyn Surrick, viola da gamba, is one of a shared musical passion. They are both well established in their fields, have toured extensively, and recorded numerous CDs. But most importantly, they compose, arrange, and are always available to think about old music in new ways. As musicians, they are eternally productive and irrepressibly imaginative. As performers, they are luminous.
Fermi’s Paradox
Fermi asked the question, “Where is everyone?” His query looked more to the heavens than to today’s concert halls, but in this locked-down, isolated world of 2020, we set about to invent a universe of music.
In the winter of 2020 when there was little to celebrate, we sat together on Saturday mornings playing music. But in the spring when there were no concerts, no tours, and no rehearsals, we kept playing – creating a new vocabulary for the lute and viola da gamba. We brought our favorite pieces, wrote new music, and committed ourselves to recording a new CD - Fermi’s Paradox. We brought our best selves, our intention, and these instruments...our reply.
~Carolyn Surrick
