Hello everyone,
Are you a social media creator, film or tv producer, marketing officer or an artist who needs Caribbean music and is tired of getting those takedown requests?
Then this is for you.
Head over to
https://stefanwalcott.bandcamp.com/
and take a look and listen to my royalty=free albums.
There’s something there for you.
Look what came through yesterday.
The program to Handel Festpielle in Halle with Handel’s Caribbean Messiah as a featured production for the 2021 run.
I wrote and was executive producer on this work since its inception and what a ride Handel’s Caribbean Messiah has been. Here is a clip of me going through the process of composing for the debut show.
So here are the THANK YOUS!!!!
2. All of the Barbados Museum crew especially Kevin Farmer who brought us over in 2018. BCIDA for supporting the album production in 2018.
3. Jewel Forde and everyone at the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation for the success of the 2018 run.
4. The Caribbean Export Development Agency National Cultural Foundation for their support in 2019.
5. The original management team who assisted in the growth of the production, the original Bajan cast and our expanded cast in 2019.
This started as an idea on a page and ended up being accepted by Handel Haus, I am truly personally humbled and I have learnt soooo much.
We might not get there as a group but the production shows there is a global demand for what we do in these tiny islands once there is co-operation.
Eventually, I will be writing and blogging on this experience outlining where we can improve as cultural industry people.
But for now.
Thank you Barbados for allowing me to create Handel’s Caribbean Messiah.
I present to you my final book from the lockdown period.
60 Caribbean Folk Songs with Audio.
60 Caribbean Folk songs is a book which has compiled folk songs from Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, Jamaica, Guyana and Barbados. For the first time, all these Caribbean treasures can be found in one document that is digitally preserved.
All songs come with audio tracks so you can sing along.
Check the link below.
Enjoy
I am very proud to announce that Handel’s Caribbean Messiah has been selected for the Handel-Festspiele in Halle Germany for 2021.
The Handel-Festspiele is an annual festival celebrating Handel’s music in his birthplace by local German and international acts.
I am incredibly moved by this selection as we were chosen based on my re-imagining, orchestrations and in some cases compositions, with the performances executed by a 100% Barbadian cast.
The fact that this was done by a panel of Handel experts makes the achievement even more rewarding. Also, the fact that the negotiations began through my completion of the Caribbean Export process, which involved some sacrifice, made me more reassured in my music business decisions.
Handel’s Caribbean Messiah is one of the only locally created indigenous works that brings the strands of Caribbean culture together and even though we might not make the last financial hurdle to reach Halle, the fact that it has been looked at as having international quality by unbiased experts shows how we should rely on our own confidence as Caribbean cultural practitioners in what we do.
I encourage all who are in Barbados this week, December 20-22nd, to come out to the Frank Collymore Hall and see this production that will soon be leaving these shores by the 100% Bajan ORIGINAL cast.
Thanks to my team who supported the dream and to Fran Wickham and Ronald Grant whose support allowed for the first staging of the production in 2017. Also to Carol Roberts who was enthusiastic about it when it was only an idea and suggested the use of a Bajan nation language narrator who is now Jabari Prince Browne.
Last month I contributed to an article written by Sharine Taylor from Noisey.
Here is the link.
Enjoy!
I love doing workshops.
Here I am at Edna Manley College in Jamaica speaking to how Dancehall music can be used as melodic and harmonic material for Jazz large ensemble.
The case study here is Summertime, the Vybz Kartel composition mixed with the more well known Gershwin one. The students are using the fused melody to go through various Caribbean styles as well.
Enjoy
A big part of what I do is lead the 1688 Collective.
The collective is a musical ensemble based in the Caribbean that is dedicated to keeping music#aLive in Barbados and throughout the English-speaking Caribbean.
Check the video below as I speak to how the group works and what I do in it.
Enjoy!
Christmas is an important event in the Caribbean.
Here are five musical genres that are/were rooted/routed to this time of year.
1. Tuk – Barbados
Tuk music is a fife and drum music. It is perhaps the only indigenous Afro-Barbadian genre to have survived colonialisation. At Christmas, Tuk groups would come through villages playing and drinking rum. Tuk music is hardly ever played at this time anymore and has moved into the realm of nationalist celebration.
2. Masquerade – Guyana
Masquerade is another fife and drum music with a strong musical similarity to Tuk. Like Tuk, the playing of it at Christmas has waned.
3. Plena – Puerto Rico
Plena is the one of the major indigenous Puerto Rican musical forms. The music is seen to have been created by English-speaking Caribbean migrants in the 1800s. It is also one of my personal favourites when it comes to Caribbean genres.
4. Parang – Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad is one of the more cosmopolitan islands in the Caribbean. Parang shows the Hispanic cultural influence as it was traditionally sung in Spanish and uses instruments found in other folk cultures of the Hispanic Caribbean. There is a Soca-Parang variant that is popular but here it is in its traditional form.
5. Parranda – Venezuela
To end, here is a popular genre from Venezuela. Parranda sounds like a more rhythmically complicated version of parang and I am sure they come from the same root. Here is one of my favourite groups, Maracaibo 15.
So I hope you have enjoyed this brief Christmas blog.
All that I am left to do is wish you a
Merry Christmas!
Please enjoy it wherever you are.
Caribbean Music Man
This blog has just passed 6000 views!!!!
Thanks for your interest in Caribbean music and culture.
I really value every comment and view so keep stopping by.
Respect
Stefan ‘Caribbean Music Man’ Walcott
Roy Byer was one of the THE people when it came to Bajan knowledge.
He passed away this month.
As Roy was a serious archivist, I have included the following video clips as tributes.
These clips will be housed on my “Words From the Masters” page as long as the internet lives.
Please enjoy, and remember him this way,
as a passionate and opinionated lover of Barbadian culture.
RIP
stefanwalcott.com 