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          JT: So remind me, you’re on tree number three of, is it twelve?

          FH: So there’s a total of nine trees, nine compositions –

          SW: – based on the Ogham script –

          FH: – each alphabet letter is named after a tree.

          SW: So you have “A” for Ailm, which is Irish for Scotts Pine. And so we connected that alphabet with, of course – hey, we’re musicians – with the musical alphabet. So A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and then there’s also H, which is often B.

          Oak, I grew up in Oakville. [“Dair,” the seventh letter of Ogham means “Oak”]. So Oak just is so profound – the Oak is like the royalty of the forest, and they’re so ancient, so many of them, and so we decided that the Oak would have two compositions for it. So, two Oaks.

          Yeah, and we also liked the [number] nine, that importance of nine being three by three. All are trees except for G, which is Ivy, and it was like: these are all following the script, what’s ivy doing in there? [Laughter

          But ivy is known for growing up trees, oaks or whatever, and so they actually become the tree. They’re reaching for the sun, they’re growing alongside the trees, so ivy is given as much importance.

          And I was trying to figure out, is it a vine?

          Is it ivy?

          And I realized I was taking photographs of vines and not ivy. And then I looked at my parents’ backyard, and growing up this weeping cedar is the English Ivy! It’s like, it was too perfect, right?

          There’s so many parts to this project besides just the beauty of reminding people about trees, the importance of planting trees.

          The importance of the tree canopy in the world, and also just musically, what Frank and I are connecting through and the Druidic background with Diana. But for me I’m actually really connecting with trees in a really profound way through photographing them. I’ve been photographing trees all my life, right? I have a strong connection with trees – my dad grew up in a forest, I’ve been visiting that forest for my whole life.

          But actually photographing them, weirdly, pulls me into them and the connections of, of –  what I’ve been doing is photographing the same trees in different seasons and at different points of time, and connecting with those trees:  really looking at them, really feeling them. The movement that they have.

          And to add to all of this background the medicine of trees, the healing properties, the magical parts of the Celtic stories of trees. All of that is connecting for Frank and myself separately and together,  in terms of the sound that we’re exploring.

          JT: When did you first encounter the script? This ancient alphabet that – I understand I’m new to it, and it’s fascinating. I understand it’s like the underpinning for traditional Irish. Is that correct? 

          SW: It’s the earliest European

alphabet, the oldest that ever existed.

         FH: Yeah, so basically Diana’s book 

To Speak for the Trees is in two parts.

The first part of the book is her life story

and chronicling all of her activist work 

over the years and how her belief systems
mapped that out. And then the second part

is basically a really fancy glossary where she maps out every letter in the ancient Ogham script, where she writes in great detail about each letter. 

         SW: In other words, every letter in the Ogham script is named after a different tree. That’s how important trees were to the ancient Celts.

         FH: And so what we did was, we looked at that glossary, and we extracted letters from

the Ogham script that are musical notes, and selected those ones that could be sort of

the thematic basis, like the roots –  we’re using that word a lot and that’s the beauty of our project, is that the roots of our music are linked very directly to that sound.   And very much yeah, absolutely literally the pitch, and each piece has its own unique character, because Diana describes in great detail the spiritual and the practical sense of the character of each of those letters in the ancient old script, and how the ancient Celts would have used them, what it meant to them. And so we’re using that as a basis to get inspired. To give each of our nine pieces a unique character.

         JT: Well, what’s fascinating, too, is that there’s research and evidence linking music

and spoken word, that language and music are intertwined, that they’re inextricable in a way. And so it’s really so lovely what you’re embarking on. 

         SW: So there a whole other connector – we’re just kind of giving overviews here. It’s embedded in that ancient script, the ancient concept of trees from that time. There’s a connection, a human connection, with ancient trees, and then there’s also a very contemporary part to our writing and compositional style that we’re doing because we’re using acoustic Celtic harp and electronics. So this is also a very twenty-first century sound.

         JT: For sure, and as a flute player, and as a pianist, too, we each have wood in our

instruments; one of my favourite flutes is from 1872, and what forest would that flute have come from? Or, you know, the inlay of your some of your harps, Sharlene – interesting that we’re actually making music with the forest, with trees, you know.

         SW: Yeah, yeah, the sound – it’s a human sound from the forest.

         JT: And this goes back centuries, perhaps even millennia in the UK, if I understand correctly.

         SW: Yeah, maybe.

         JT: Has Diana had an opportunity to hear these two pieces?

         SW: Yes, she will have an opportunity.

         FH: Yeah, we’ve been in touch with her, just to introduce her to the concept when we first

envisioned it, and she is so supportive of this. She’s so world-renowned and so respected, so to have somebody of that stature?–

         Well first of all, she inspired the project – if it wasn’t for her book, we wouldn’t have come up with the concept for that type of thing, but secondly, she’s very passionate. For a person who’s of science to come out and say, music has such an important role to play in having us think about important issues. 

         Basically her goal is to plant trees, you know – we should plant as many trees as possible and that should be our goal.

         JT: I’ve been wondering if there have been “ah-ha” moments, or things that have surprised you with the two pieces that you’ve been working on so far.

         SW: Ah, well just how fluid it… The two trees happened.

         JT: Which are the first two trees?

         SW: The Birch and Hazel.

         JT: And do you have a favourite or favourites? [Laughter] Ah, they’re all your children, right?

         SW: No, I mean they’re both unique from one another, and even though the process is the same, and it's a beautiful process that we have, because we start together –

         JT: – I would love to hear more about that! Can you speak about your creative process a little bit?

         FH: Yeah, sure. So basically we've sort of created a three-step creative process. The first step is for us, for Sharlene and I, to be in the same room, like a recording studio.

         So we’re working with our our mutual friend, Jean Martin, here in Toronto, who’s a wonderful percussionist and audio engineer and producer. And so he’s part of our team and basically we, Sharlene and I, showed up to his studio. And we sat around discussing the specific tree in mind and Sharlene recorded loops – loops and patterns on her harp, based around that specific tree’s movement, and we recorded – we spent hours recording different patterns, different loops, discussing, “Oh try this, try that!” Long notes, short notes, low notes, high notes. Around that sort of tonal center of that particular piece.

         Step two is, I took those loops and those patterns that Sharlene recorded, and I created an electronic bed – composed an electronic bed track, which basically incorporates eighty to ninety per cent of Sharlene’s sounds, digitally manipulated to create the sonic soundscape, very ambient in nature. 

         And then the third and final step in the process is that I hand that over to Sharlene. She composes a live harp part on top of the electronic part.

         So maybe Sharlene, you’d want to talk about how that was for you. Like I handed over Sharlene the electronic sounds, and then you listen to it and what did you do then? [Laughter] I don’t even know what you were doing.

         SW: Yeah, I listened to it a lot and then just behind the harp started, uh, playing along with it, finding grooves, just seeing where, with the concept of the tree, it was taking me. Still, you know, this isn't just a piece. This is like the piece for the Hazel. In other words, I wanted to feel that, the energy, like the way that the Hazel is – its limbs are buoyant.

         I wanted to feel that in what I was playing on the harp.

         JT: And were you visualizing it then?

         SW: It’s more physical movement, it’s a physical visualization that I’m responding to and just constantly playing along with it, starting at the beginning, feeling entry points and whatever, wherever I was going with it, but absolutely it’s sort of a layered response. The electronic bed track that Frank put together, it’s ambient, but there’s awesome grooves in there!

         FH: Right?

         SW: So you have no idea how exciting that was for me. A lovely groove!

         You know, and I don’t mean like I walked into the woods.

         I mean, you really traverse through. It is like walking through the forest and the story is a physical sensation, a physical visualization. It’s experiential and I just kept working on it, writing, writing it down, working on it.

         This project has many layers to it – it’ll be a recording, but it will also be a performance-based project, where I play live on top of the bed track.

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