Simon Mayor and friends

Celtic Baroque and much more, spiced with a delicious sense of fun!

‘One of the world’s great mandolinists’ leads an illustrious, witty and virtuosic collective on mandolins, mandobass, violin, ‘cello, classical guitar and voice.

In the wake of the release of his album ‘Carolan’ (fantasias on themes by Turlough O’Carolan 1670-1735), Simon has gathered musicians who played on the studio sessions (Florence Petit: cello, Hilary James: mandobass & vocals) and recruited long-time fellow Mandolinquent Richard Collins (mandolin, guitar, banjo, bass) and Elias Sibley (mandolin, guitar, ukulele) to play a limited number of dates over the autumn/winter season.

The group will be flexible and will feature many of Simon’s acclaimed arrangements of Carolan’s melodies and much more.

Sleevenotes from the album ‘Carolan’

Simon Mayor writes…
I remember well the first time I heard the music of the Irish harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan (1670 – 1738). The Irish group Planxty were playing at Reading University Folk Club. As a student haunt, it was one I vastly preferred to the lecture hall or seminar; Russian social thought of the 18th century was never as exciting as this! But let’s not digress.

Planxty had been booked by Hilary James, who – no coincidence here – features on this recording. The band played a couple of Carolan pieces and I was immediately captivated by the strength and grandness of the melodies. I subsequently became intimately acquainted with their first album and lost count of the times I heard their versions of Si Bheag Si Mhor and Planxty Irwin.

Carolan’s loss of sight through smallpox at the age of eighteen caused an intriguing twist to his legacy. Unable to notate his own music, those who did failed to record the harmonies he must have used, given that he played a polyphonic instrument, the harp. It was an unfortunate omission for anyone wishing to recreate his music with absolute historical accuracy. For me, this was never a strong desire, not least because I don’t play the harp! On the contrary, the ‘bare bones’, ‘melody only’ approach of his archivists had always proved alluring in itself. I wasn’t bound by the perceived constraints that hang over the music of more meticulously documented composers.

Because the task of archiving Carolan wasn’t undertaken to any large degree until some years after his death, some have argued that it would be impossible to notate so much music from memory, but this is not true. Those who play traditional music, and in particular those of us who have not been through music college, are usually blessed with well developed musical ears (helped in my own case by a father who taught me to sing in tonic sol-fa as a child). The trad musician can easily memorise tens or even hundreds of tunes.

Carolan stayed with me over the years. I gradually wrote numerous arrangements of his pieces for solo guitar, as well as duets, trios and quartets, mostly for the residential mandolin workshops I regularly host. While these all formed a basis for the music on this album, I decided to go beyond simple harmonisation by varying tempos, incorporating changes of key and mode, and using the harmonic sequences as a basis for extemporisation. With multi-track recording I was able to build arrangements using the instruments I play: guitar, violin, viola, and all sizes of the mandolin family, with splendiferous assistance from Florence Petit’s ‘cello and Hilary James’ basses and cameo vocals

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Reviews of ‘Carolan’

‘A demon on the mandolin, an angel on the fiddle: or vice versa? Either way, Simon Mayor creates music that borders on the divine… towering performances.’
Irish Music Magazine

‘a superb reminder of Mayor’s exceptional musicianship… shines a new light on Carolan’s timeless compositions.’
* * * * RnR Magazine (four star review)

Hear some clips from the album

Hewlett

Princess Royal

Mrs Sterling

Snowy-Breasted Pearl

Carolan’s Frolic

Carolan’s Devotion

Si Bheag Si Mhor

Carolan’s Dream (guitar)

Lord Inchiquin

Dolly MacDonough

Carolan’s Concerto

George Brabazon

Katherine O’More

Carolan’s Dream (string quartet)

Meet the friends

HILARY JAMES
Best known for her exquisite singing, Hilary also plays the mighty mandobass and is a mean guitar picker. Her superb voice defies categorisation and has featured everywhere from the BBC’s Folk on 2 to Radio 1 and Classic FM.

RICHARD COLLINS
Richard first picked up a guitar at the age of nine and within a couple of years was stunningly adept on a number of stringed instruments. Now highly regarded as a mandolinist and guitarist, he is also one of the hottest and subtlest 5 string banjo players around (he’s three time UK banjo champion).

ELIAS SIBLEY
Given his consumate skill as a classical guitarist, it’s easy to overlook that Elias is one of the finest finger-style ukulele players of his generation. And if that’s not enough, he excels too on classic banjo: pre-bluegrass styles of ragtime and early jazz.

FLORENCE PETIT
Franco-British cellist Florence Petit is an innovative and exciting young musician with a warm, engaging stage manner. The recipient of a diverse host of awards and in demand as a soloist, Florence is a fine exponent of Baroque music and has appeared many times on Radio 3.

Videos from the album ‘Carolan’

(links open YouTube windows)