And So Flows The River
and so flows the river
dipping toes and skipping stones
each ripple, her grace extending,
banks shaped by wind, water, and time.
silvery roots, the dancers of the forest,
their buckskin leaves rattling in winter.
ghostly sycamore, lining the creeks
that lead to the river, they stay with us
always, no distance or time
can erase, those days.
we are eastern people -
Rappahannock, Susquehanna
Shenandoah, Patuxent
Severn, all
coursing through
our veins.
a faded, wooden porch
beside a dusty road in West Virginia.
abandoned buildings on Biddle Street,
the Upper Green, the ocean, the sky, the
past.
our lives and paths,
the losses
and music
an ever changing geography
of our hearts, gliding downstream
and so flows the river.
-Carolyn Surrick
GREENMOUNT AVE VIDEO
About
Carolyn Surrick, viola da gamba has a B.A. in music from the University of California Santa Cruz and an M.A. in musicology from George Washington University. She founded Ensemble Galilei in 1990, and they started touring in 1995. The group has recorded fourteen CDs and has performed hundreds of concerts in 46 states, Mexico, and Canada.
Ensemble Galilei pioneered and then toured multi-disciplinary projects starting in the 1990’s using pictures, prose and poetry, and music. Surrick produced five of these special projects including a partnership with The National Geographic Society for the creation of First Person: Stories from the Edge of the World as well as a collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art to produce First Person: Seeing America. Ensemble Galilei’s most recent tour with longtime collaborator, NPR’s Neal Conan, included award-winning journalist Anne Garrels. This extraordinary look at the lives of wounded warriors, and life as a war correspondent, is based on Surrick’s book, Between War and Here.
A collaborator at heart, when the opportunity arose to create new work with Ronn McFarlane, she leapt. Their shared musical sensibilities and the extraordinary combination of the two instruments has been a revelation, for which she is deeply grateful.
GRAMMY-nominated lutenist Ronn McFarlane strives to bring the lute – the most popular instrument of the Renaissance – into today’s musical mainstream and make it accessible to a wider audience.
Born in West Virginia, Ronn grew up in Maryland. At thirteen, upon hearing “Wipeout” by the Surfaris, he fell madly in love with music and taught himself to play on a “cranky sixteen-dollar steel string guitar.” Ronn kept at it, playing blues and rock music on the electric guitar while studying classical guitar. He graduated with honors from Shenandoah Conservatory and continued guitar studies at Peabody Conservatory before turning his full attention and energy to the lute in 1978. The next year, Mr. McFarlane began to perform solo recitals on the lute and became a member of the Baltimore Consort. Since then, he has toured throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe with the Baltimore Consort and as a soloist.
McFarlane was a faculty member of the Peabody Conservatory from 1984 to 1995, teaching lute and lute-related subjects. In 1996, Mr. McFarlane was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from Shenandoah Conservatory for his achievements in bringing the lute and its music to the world. He has over 40 recordings on the Dorian/Sono Luminus label, including solo albums, lute duets, flute & lute duets, viola da gamba & lute duets, lute songs, the complete lute music of Vivaldi, a collection of Elizabethan lute music and poetry, and recordings with the Baltimore Consort.
Ronn has composed new music for the lute, building on the tradition of the lutenist/composers of past centuries. His original compositions are the focus of his solo CD, Indigo Road, which received a GRAMMY Award Nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album of 2009.
In 2010 Ronn founded Ayreheart, an ensemble brought together to perform new compositions as well as early music. Ayreheart’s first CD release, One Morning, consists of all-original music by Ronn McFarlane. Ayreheart’s 2016 release, Barley Moon, blends folk music and art music from Renaissance and Medieval England, Scotland and Wales.
Ronn’s newest solo album, The Celtic Lute, features his arrangements of traditional Scottish and Irish music from the 17th and 18th centuries. And his 2020 release, Fermi’s Paradox, with Carolyn Surrick, viola da gamba, features an eclectic blend of Renaissance, Baroque, original music, hymns, and folk tunes from Ireland, Scotland, England, and Sweden.
“McFarlane is a marvelous lutenist, as subtle as he is accomplished and Ms. Surrick makes a perfectly vivid contrast with her own supreme musicality.”
Upcoming Performances
Not a couple.
If you have spent decades,
making music,
doing master classes,
recording CDs,
doing radio interviews,
and generally living the life of a touring musician,
you know a thing or two about airports,
rental cars, and hotels.
You also have a finely tuned sense
of the musicians you can work with
and those you cannot.
And when you are in your sixties,
generally, you are not expecting
to meet someone whose musical sensibilities
temperament, values, and life path,
match yours.
And then when you do,
everybody thinks you’re a couple.
Yes, the music making is extremely personal.
Yes, the emotional connection is palpable.
Some might say intimate. Or intense.
Still…not a couple.
