The Rainmakers

Blackwood

Click on photos to access info on Blackwood, Community Singing or the Rainmakers

13 April 12

Just back from the National Folk festival in Canberra. Quite a few things to be worried about regarding the culture of the festival evolving towards more fences, security, and restricted areas in front of stages for the convenience of TV crews. Good reasons for each of the changes but combined they make for quite a different experience for the participants. Despite all these concerns however the music, as always, managed to lift the spirits and take me to a better place.
It was also a thrill to see Jane and Fay launch their new EP 'Songs With Legs' with some beautiful performances and also Maggie and Elsie launching their trio, with Anita Hillman, to fantastic audiences and great responses.

 

4 Dec 2011

The day after our premiere performance brings a deep sense of satisfaction. The orchestra performed brilliantly and more importantly had an absolute ball. The weather was perfect and a huge crowd of dancers turned up to enjoy their annual Summer dance and were probably surprised to see an orchestra sitting waiting to play for them. Their response to the music was so warm and there was a real sense of pleasure that Castlemaine now has it's own orchestra. The playing was solid and projected much better than we expected in the outdoor setting and the final dance with the orchestra joining in the traditional 'Nigun Atik' was the best ever. Check out the photos here.

 

31 Oct

Week 2 of the Corker Orchestra was a fantastic development from the first. 35 people this week even though we had a number of people who were unable to come. A third score was added to the list and I think many people had been practising during the week because everything sounded even sweeter than the week before.

24 Oct

Tonight we started the brand new Corker Orchestra in Castlemaine. It is an attempt to get everyone to drag out their old dusty instruments that they haven't played since school. Also to get new players of instruments, young and old, an environment where they can try out their new skills without fear of criticism.

As a brand new type of group we had no idea how many people would turn up and with what instruments so we were delighted at the first session to have 30 people arrive with violins, flutes, guitars, trombones, saxophones, recorders, tin whistles and ukuleles.
Everyone joined in with the spirit of the occasion and we made a great sound with the 2 scores that we started off with. Check out the photos here

Here's looking forward to next week.

 

19 May 2011

In case anyone's interested we have recently posted a couple of Youtubes. The first one is of Maggie & Elsie singing one of Maggie's songs at the Nash, in Canberra, just past. You can view it here.
The second one is a flash sing in our local supermarket that Jane and I co-ordinated during this year's Castlemaine State Festival. It wasn't an official event just something that we thought should happen. Have a look here.

 

2 May

Just back from the National Folk Festival last week in Canberra with some lovely news. Maggie and Elsie were awarded the Lis Johnston award for excellence in singing. This is a very prestigious award previously won by Zulya Kamalova, Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton, John Thompson and Michael Kennedy among others. There are some photos of the presentation and other highlights of the Nash here.

 

 

 

19 April

Maggie and Elsie have some lovely new songs they've just knocked up on the Zoom recorder in the kitchen.
You can have listen to them here.

 

 

10 November

Woohoo!! We've picked up our new Christmas CD, Yandoit, from the fatory. We are going to be launching it at the fabulous Penny School Gallery in Church St Maldon. We would love to have launched here in Castlemaine but we were just sitting watching some shows during the recent Maldon Folk Festival and we were reminded why we had always thought of it as the best room for playing music that we know of.

The launch is on the 27th Nov at 7:30 but we would love to see you from 6:00 for dinner. Fay White is going to sing some songs with Jane at the launch, James will play some rootsy electric guitar music with Saul Roche and Maggie is going to show us what she's been up to for the last few months as she travelled around Europe. We are also going to be accompanied by Wendy Rowlands on accordion and Anita Hillman on cello and bass.

If you wish to come it is highly desirable to book and pay ahead as space is quite limited. If you do pay ahead we will make sure that we save you a really good seat. Please contact Arabella by phone on 0419 566 081 or email arabella@mmnet.com.au

 

18 August

Do we have the most out of date music website in Australia?

Since our last entry we have recorded a Christmas album, travelled and performed around the UK and left our eldest daughter, Maggie, behind to keep on learning new songs.

Give us a few weeks and we'll put more news here and some samples from the upcoming Christmas album.

Cheers James

 

 

4 November
We've just returned to earth after another Maldon Folk Festival. Always one our favourite small festivals made even better this year by the beautiful weather that was just nudging being too hot after a few years of rain, dust, wind and cold.

We've had another busy few months with a huge school singing project in Wangaratta (200 students from eleven schools), Roses Gap music camp in the Grampians, Rainmakers in Warracknabeal (where the van broke down), the Gorgeous Voices Festival in Bendigo and a lovely little singing project in Baringhup where they are trying to revive the Loddon River after a decade of drought.

Our other big break through is buying a video camera and sorting out how to get tings into 'Youtube'. So here are links for some recent performances as well as a beautiful old clip that we made in 2006.

Avila at the Bendigo Folk Club during Gorgeous Voices Festival Oct 2009

The Travelling Song written by Jane and performed in Warracknabeal Oct 2009

Marimba Flamenca written by Alice Gomez performed by Maggie at Castlemaine High School Oct 2009

One Voice A beautiful Wailin Jennys song performed in 'The Cathedral' at the Purnululu National Park June 2006

 

 

15 September
More than six months has passed since we last did anything to this webpage. A true reflection of how busy we've been.
Since then we have taught some fantastic songs at the Castlemaine State, Port Fairy and the National Folk Festivals, taken a group down to sing in the Melbourne Milenium Chorus and done a mass of singing in primary schools. We are only a couple of days away from performance at our latest big community music project in Wangaratta. We have 200 students from 11 schools in the district singing at the opening of their spiffing new performing arts centre. Huge fun!
James has also had the privelege of co-ordinating the creation of a new integration choir for people with disadvantage in Bendigo. Think 'The Choir Of Hard Knocks', only better.(We think)

The Rainmakers have also had busy time with some lovely concerts in Canberra, Castlemaine, Torqay, Corowa and many others.
Coming up we have gigs in
Warracknabeal 10th Oct ,
Gorgeous Voices Festival Bendigo 17th Oct
Maldon Folk Festival 30th Oct - 2nd Nov
Contact us if you need any more detailed information about thse gigs.

 

2 March
The 2009 Castlemaine State Festival is nearly upon us and we have music to learn and things to organise. If you are a member of the 'Chat Warblers', 'The Acafellas', the 'Festival Youth Choir' or the 'Castlemaine Peace Choir' then the music you are probably looking for is here.

 

1 December

The Rainmakers new album,"Singing Up A Storm", is finished and we're really looking forward to launching it in Castlemaine and Melbourne over the next couple of weeks. We recorded all the tracks at home but mixed at a new studio facility here in Castlemaine, 'Instramental', with Aria award winning engineer Mickey Levis. We then mastered it at Dex audio in Melbourne.

We are really pleased with the result and were thrilled to have an opportunity to travel around New Zealand with it for 3 weeks during September and October. We had eleven concerts in all from Oamaru in the South to Auckland in the North. Our performing muscles got strong and now we are busting to do some gigs back home.

Castlemaine CD launch: Nov 7 at the Mt Alexander Golf Club, was a fantastic night with a huge crowd and we even managed to pull off 28 ml of rain just for the occasion.

Melbourne CD launch: Nov 8 at The Boite, Mark St. Hall, Nth Fitzroy. 8pm.

We are sharing this concert with Rod Waterman and Doug DeVries which is a bit of a thrill as they are two of Australia's finest musicians playing Brazilian music and more on recorder and guitar.

 

 

 

Click here for audio samples, more information about the album and performing dates.

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