Recorders, Fiddles, Clogs and Swords

Duo Windborne are two of Australia’s finest recorder players: Rodney Waterman and Ryan Williams. Their debut album, Venus Bay Fireside Sessions, is a record of their improvisational partnership. Originally intended to be recorded outside as a direct response to the natural world of Venus Bay, the weather drove them indoors and beside the fire – hence the title. They join Andy in studio with a fraction of their huge instrument collection to talk about their relationship with nature, their collaboration, and mount a defence of their much maligned instrument.

Coral Reid is a fiddle player, a clog dancer, and a sword dancer (!) too. She’s an English folk music specialist and she’s brought her violin, her clogs, but sadly no swords into studio to demonstrate some of the traditions that spilled out from the mills, the mines and the pubs of northern England around the Industrial Revolution.

Plus new music from Tonya Lemoh and Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion.

Duo Windborne launch their album Venus Bay Fireside Sessions on 19 April at Victorian Artists Society in Melbourne.

Coral Reid is on tour with the Sofa of Fools across Victoria and NSW until 21 April.

Tonya Lemoh’s album I Dream A World is out now via ABC Classic.

Music heard in the show:

Title: BrownsArtist: Duo WindborneComposer: improvised by Rodney Waterman and Ryan WilliamsAlbum: Venus Bay Fireside SessionsLabel: Independent release

Title: Dances in the Canebrakes No. 1; Nimble FeetArtist: Tonya LemohComposer: Florence PriceAlbum: I Dream A WorldLabel: ABC Classic

Title: Mangrove InletArtist: Duo WindborneComposer: improvised by Rodney Waterman and Ryan WilliamsAlbum: Venus Bay Fireside SessionsLabel: Independent release

Three improvised pieces performed live in The Music Show studio by Duo Windborne – Rodney Waterman and Ryan Williams

Title: The Bonny Miller (trad)Performed live by Coral Reid in The Music Show studio

Clog dances “Sam Sherry’s Beginner Hornpipe”, and “Mrs. Willis’s Rag” demonstrated by Coral Reid in The Music Show studio

Title: Road to PoyntonComposer: Rob HarbronPerformed live by Coral Reid in The Music Show studio

Title: Rectangles and CircumstanceArtist: Caroline Shaw and Sō PercussionComposer: Caroline Shaw and Sō PercussionAlbum: Rectangles and CircumstanceLabel: Nonesuch (releasing 14 June)

Technical production by Tim Jenkins, Tim Symonds, and Hamish “Tim” Camilleri

This episode of The Music Show was produced on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Gadigal and Gundungurra Land