Category: Paddy Bush Page 1 of 2

Kate’s brother Paddy has dropped me a line to let you know about an upcoming concert in Wales. “There’s a Justin Vali concert coming up on the 22nd of this month in Cardiff, I shall be playing with him. It’s for a charity called Money for Madagascar, the concert marks a 200th anniversary…it might be of interest to some of your Welsh members.” Justin, as you will know, played on Kate’s songs The Red Shoes and Eat the Music, along with Paddy.

The show takes place in the Dora Stoutzker Hall at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff on September 22nd at 7.30pm. As well as the Justin Vali Quintet with Paddy Bush, the evening will feature The Nidum Ensemble. Tickets are £17.50 (£15 concessions) and children under 12 are free. More information on the college’s website here.

From the event publicity:

“What are we celebrating? An amazing piece of Welsh history that started in disaster when, in 1818, all but one of the first group of missionaries died of fever within eleven weeks of landing in Madagascar. The survivor, David Jones, went back to Mauritius to recover but later returned to Madagascar. A third young Welshman, David Griffiths, and his wife Mary arrived there in 1820.

What followed was truly astonishing: Mary and the two Davids went up to the capital, learnt Malagasy and started schools, with girls included from the very beginning. By 1824, scarcely three years after their arrival, over 2,000 children were in school and being taught in their own language. The two Davids built a chapel and started preaching in Malagasy. With the help of their most able pupils they then set about translating the Bible and the first complete edition was published in 1835.

At the request of King Radama and using the Roman script, they created a written form of the Malagasy language which is almost perfectly phonetic. As a result, learning to read has been a relatively painless process for generations of Malagasy children ever since. Music reaches every part of life in Madagascar and when King George IV sent King Radama the gift of a piano he was overjoyed. Some of the music composed by him in the 1820s will be performed in the concert.

The Nidum Ensemble

Paddy Bush is Irish, not Malagasy, but he is a fine performer on the Valiha, the national instrument of Madagascar, and will be joining Justin Vali and his group for the concert. Welcome Paddy! We are delighted to have you. The Nidum Ensemble is made up of brilliant young Welsh musicians from big UK orchestras. They are well-known in South Wales where they have given many memorable concerts.

There will be crafts from Madagascar on sale in the foyer and also a showing of a short film about the first missionaries before the concert and during the interval.”

Kate’s brother (and lifetime musical collaborator!) Paddy Bush, has let me know that he will be giving a talk in Aarau, Switzerland on the 21st September. The talk is entitled: “The Beauty and Complexity of Malagasy Music“. The venue, Forumschlossplatz, is about 20 minutes from Zürich and the talk kicks off at 7.15pm that evening. Paddy says he may touch on how the music of Madagascar influenced Kate’s Red Shoes album. The talk will be given in English and Paddy will be playing some of his favourite recordings and playing a couple of tunes himself! The exhibition is called Listening to Madagascar – let your Swiss friends know! The Facebook Event page for Paddy’s talk is here.

From the event site: “The musician Paddy Bush, expert in Madagascan music, discusses his fascination for the complex rhythms and uniqueness of traditional music. He talks about the peculiarities of Madagascan pop and how Madagascar’s music has entered the sounds of Kate Bush. His presentation, in English, is accompanied with numerous musical tastings.”

About the exhibition (August 19th – Oct 1st):

“Madagascar! The sonorous name offers itself as a place of longing for free-flying fantasies. But how does “Madagascar” sound far away from fantastic performances and images? “Listen to Madagascar” invites you to an auditive journey to this huge island in the Indian Ocean. Teny, Tany, Tantara, are three important aspects for Madagascans. The exhibition leads to the differentiated Malagasy language culture (Teny), we hear what the people (Tany) means, and how they relate to their ancestors (Tantara).” –  download the exhibition catalogue (PDF) here. 

Paddy Bush, Kate’s brother, has let me know that the World Music magazine Songlines are including Kate next month as part of a series of regular features called “My World” (rather like a world music desert island discs). Paddy, who writes for the magazine and is featured in the current issue, persuaded Kate into selecting her top ten world music favourites, which will be featured on the cover mounted CD. We know that Kate’s choices include Justin Vali from Madagascar (who played on The Red Shoes album and has worked and toured with Paddy). Also chosen is music from Germany, Brittany and Ireland. Kate will have a comment on each of the tracks to go with the CD. The magazine is out on the 9th of December. Spread the word! Read more about ordering the Songlines magazine here.

Also, the excellent Madagascar film that Paddy did for for Channel 4 in 1998, Like A God When He Plays, has been shown on a US satellite TV station called Link TV and will be repeated throughout this coming week, see the channel’s website here for broadcast times. This is a beautiful film and I know from my emails that there are a lot of Paddy Bush fans who missed it first time out. Thanks Pad, congrats again on Kate’s top 4 hit single (Paddy, reluctant popstar, did the spooky backing vocals!). Paddy has also sent in a feature for issue 77 of HomeGround, which will be out in April. Read more about Paddy and the documentary at my original feature here. UPDATE: From the editor of Songlines: “not all the tracks on the CD are Kate’s playlist, the CD also includes our own editor’s choice selection, Kate’s selection includes Rolf Harris, Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder and Justin Vali“