Mother's Blood, Sister Songs Athena Media

Mother's Blood, Sister Songs, Episode 2 'Sister Songs'.

Broadcast RTÉ Lyric fm Jan 5th 6-7pm.

In Episode 2 of this music led arts documentary composer Linda Buckley meets women composers and musicians in Iceland, exploring how the genetics of Iceland reveals its Irish motherhood. What is the root of Iceland's extraordinary creativity? 

Linda talks to harpist Katie Buckley, flautist Melkorka Olafsdottir, and hears how Björk creates a collaborative and creative environment drawing on the rich legacy of Iceland's musical tradition.

The music played in this episode includes, in this order:

Linda Buckley - Fall Approaches

Linda Buckley - Numarimur

Björk - Mother Heroic 

Linda Buckley - Siúil A Rún

Sigur Ros - Odins' Raven Magic

Melkorka Olafsdottir playing Telemann Fantasia 6 Dolce

Móðir mín í kví kví - Icelandic folk song

Bara Grimsdottir - Æskustöðvarnar

Medieval Icelandic folk singing - Tvísöngur

Kristín Lárusdóttir (Selló Stína) - Haustið nálgast 

Kristin Larusdottir Sello Stina - Fold  ( vox Steindor Anderson)

Kristín Lárusdóttir (Selló-Stína) - Von

Bara Grimsdottir - Blíðviðri

Sigur Ros - Glósóli

JFDR - White Sun

Björk - The Anchor Song

Lara Bryndis Eggertsdottir - I heard the Sound of their Wings

Vox Feminae - Móðir mín í kví, kví

Anna Thorvaldsdottir (Iceland Symphony Orchestra & Ilan Volkov) - Aeriality

Björk - Utopia

Katie Buckley - Snowy February

Bjork - Violently happy

Vox Feminae - Visur Vatnsenda Rosu

Björk - Tabula Rasa

Björk - Blissing Me

Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Heyr þú oss himnum á

Linda Buckley & Irene Buckley- Song of the Siren (vox Annette Buckley)

Linda Buckley - Fall Approaches

Linda Buckley - Numarimur



Find out more on www.mothersbloodsistersongs.com



Mother's Blood, Sister Songs is an Athena Media production for RTÉ lyric fm made with the support of the TV licence fee and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. The presenter is Linda Buckley, producer is Helen Shaw, the documentary audio editor is Pearse O Caoimh and the production digital editor is John Howard. 

The RTÉ lyric fm commissioning editor is Olga Buckley.

Mother's Blood, Sister Songs : Episode 1 'Mother's Blood'
Broadcast on RTE Lyric fm Sunday December 29th 6pm-7pm.
Mother's Blood, Sister Songs is a two part radio and podcast documentary, the story of how the genetics of Iceland reveals its Irish motherhood, presented by Irish composer Linda Buckley and produced by Athena Media for RTE lyric fm.
In Epsiode 1 'Mother's Blood' Linda begins her journey at her parents dairy farm at the Old Head of Kinsale, sharing her own story of sound and music and how Iceland became part it of through music and how when she finally went there in 2014 to write music, she felt strangely at home.
That quest to uncover the connections between Ireland and Iceland starts a journey through time and history, from 9th Century Gaelic ireland during the Vikings to the genetics research of Dr. Kári Stefánsson in Reykjavik. Linda finds out about the female slaves taken by Norwegian Vikings to Iceland and becomes fascinated by one story in the Icelandic Sagas of Melkorka, a supposedly mute Irish slave, said to be the daughter of an Irish King. Is Melkorka real or imagined and where these Gaelic slaves the first mothers of Iceland?

The music heard in this episode includes:
Björk - Vísur Vatnsenda-Rósu ( Icelandic folksong)
Linda Buckley - Fall Approaches * theme
Sigur rós - Ekki Múkk
Linda Buckley - Numarimur (vox Elizabeth Hilliard) * theme
Steindór Andersen - Haustið Na´lgast
Sigur rós - Sæglópur
Linda Buckley Hekla
Linda Buckley Fridur
Linda Buckley - Drowning Pool
Linda Buckley - Siúil A Rúin (traditional air)
Valgeir Sigurðsson - Ghosts (World Premiere 2013 performed by Crash Ensemble)
Daniel Bjarnason - Bow to String
Linda Buckley - Ó Iochtar Mara (vox Iarla Ó Lionaird)
Björk - Mother Heroic
Sigur rós - Kjartan sveinsson-sidasti baerinn
Sigur rós - óðin's raven magic - chapter 3
Muireann Níc Amhlaoibh - Slán le Máigh
Linda Buckley - Torann
Vox Feminae -Vísur Vatnsenda-Rósu
Fields - Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
Heyr þú oss himnum á - Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
Sello Stína - Fold ( vox Steindór Andersen)
Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh & Billy Mag Fhloinn - Port na bPúcaí
Guðrún Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir - Móðir mín í kví, kví I (icelandic folk song - lullaby)

You can find some of the music here in a Soundcloud playlist
soundcloud.com/athena-media/sets/mothersbloodsistersongs_music

For more go to www.mothersbloodsistersongs.com

In this final look back on her exploration from Ireland to Iceland, composer Linda Buckley gives an insight into what she discovered and what she feels it tells us about creativity and music making in Iceland. 

The story of Melkorka, the Irish princess slave of the Icelandic Sagas, has haunted the journey. But her life and story has been given more substance by the genetic research showing the majority of women in the settlement period of Iceland were indeed gaelic and presumed, like her, to be slaves. The genetics has given reality to the theory that Irish and Scottish teenage girls and women were the first mothers of Iceland. Our project has been obsessed with not just giving voice to those often silenced lives but to a sense of what their impact and legacy has been, through the stories, the songs and the language they gave their children. How has that influenced and inspired the literary, musical traditions and creativity of Iceland from then to today?


The documentary series Mother's Blood, Sister Songs - a two part, two hour series, goes out on RTE Lyric fm on December 29 and Jan 5th 2020.

Music includes
Numarimur, Linda Buckley
FUNI Icelandic folk song - Kveðið við spuna / Rhyming while spinning Bára Grímsdóttir
björk Vísur Vatnsenda-Rósu
björk : sídasta ég
Sellostina Haustið Na´lgast
björk utopia

Check out www.mothersbloodsistersongs.com for the full podcast series and transmedia content.
You can find full versions of the music on the primary playlist soundcloud.com/athena-media/sets/mothers-blood-sister-songs

Melkorka Ólafsdóttir is a flautist in the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and takes her name from the Melkorka of the Icelandic Sagas. She traces her lineage back to that Melkorka, who is said to have been an Irish Princess taken into slave and bought by an Icelandic chieftain and brought to Iceland.

Melkorka is a poet, as well as a flautist, and she has written a poem for her name sake and she shares it with us in Icelandic and English.
In this episode producer Helen Shaw and composer Linda Buckley sit down with Melkorka and talk music, Bjork and motherhood.

You can find out more about her music here
And Melkorka's Svikaskáld (Imposter Poets) are here 


Music:
Melkorka Ólafsdóttir - Fantasia 6 - Dolce (from solo CD: Telemann Fantasias)
björk - utopia


Watch a short video cut of our chat with Melkorka (and her stunning cats!) - https://vimeo.com/372931299 

Los Angeles based visual artist Joan Perlman came to Iceland through dreams, and has been going back regularly for 20 years. In her most recent project she focusses on The Drowning Pool in Iceland's old open valley parliament, Thingvellir, where, around a open neck of water, women were once executed by drowning for crimes often of sexuality and moral behaviour like incest, adultery and infanticide.

For this project she connected with the Irish composer Linda Buckley who wrote a piece of music to score Joan's visual representation of "Drowning Pool".

In this conversation Linda unpacks Joan's work, finds out what brought her to Iceland, what inspires her, and how they are both, as artists, drawn to Iceland's story of landscape and people for their work.

Linda's exploration of the female voice in 'Mother's Blood, Sisters Songs' resonates with Joan's work and her witness with places that speak of hidden stories, voices and lives, particularly women's lives and stories.
Find out more about Joan and Linda's work on their websites and visit the trailer for Joan's 'Drowning Pool' on our website for 'Mother's Blood, Sister Songs'.
Joan Perlman
Linda Buckley

Music is Linda Buckley's composition for "Drowning Pool' and also
'Numarimur' by Linda Buckley sung by Elizabeth Hilliard.

If you want to find out more about Iceland's history and Thingvellir check out
www.atlasobscura.com/places/thingvellir

Vilborg Davíðsdóttir is an acclaimed Icelandic writer who draws on the women of the Icelandic Sagas for inspiration in her work. She has written a trilogy on the story of Auður the Deep Minded, who was married to Olaf the White, the Irish born Viking King of Dublin and a novel Korka drawing on the story of Melkorka the supposedly mute Irish princess slave who has been such a focus of our own series, Mother's Blood, Sister Songs.

In this podcast, composer Linda Buckley and producer Helen Shaw sit down with Vilborg, in her Reykjavik home, and she talks about her self confessed obsession with the Scottish and Irish gaelic connections to the settlement of Iceland and the Icelandic Sagas.

She shares why she made the birth of a red haired child to Auður the breaking point of her marriage to Olaf the White (who thinks the red hair is a sign of infidelity with an Irishman!) and why the slave narrative in the Icelandic Sagas remains a difficult one for Icelandic people who naturally want their origin story to be one of heroes, not slaves.
The music is by Linda Buckley : Numarimur

You can find out more about Vilborg's writing and her work here
and to follow our project and stories go to www.mothersbloodsistersongs.com