Scottish musician and composer Griselda Sanderson has released a fascinating new album titled Radial where she brings together various musical traditions using the ancient nyckelharpa. World Music Central interviewed the British musician to discuss her career and new recording.
Angel Romero – Tell us about your musical background
Griselda Sanderson – My family on both sides was very musical – my great aunt Eileen Grainger was the very first woman allowed to join the London Symphony Orchestra on viola. She recorded in 1955 at Abbey Road Studios in a string ensemble accompanying the great Spanish singer Victoria de Los Angeles on ‘Five Centuries of Spanish Song’, and she even played in a string quartet at the Queen’s coronation. My mum played the piano and my dad played in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, but left to concentrate on violin-making. His dad was a coal miner who sang comic songs and played the melodeon and ocarina, so me and my five brothers and sisters all played and listened to music a lot from an early age.
My dad’s workshop in Alva, Clackmannanshire in Central Scotland was a great focal point for local fiddlers, and his apprentices would feed us kids with all the latest folk music albums. I played in the National Youth String Orchestra of Scotland, which was a great place to meet fiddlers from all over, like Shetland and Orkney, the Western Isles, the Borders and the Highlands. So although we learned classical music we also had a lot of traditional folk music in our community with school ceilidhs, sessions and the like.
AR – Which was your first musical instrument?
GS – My mother began teaching me the piano when I was five years old – and to read music notation. So that was a very early start! But when I was about eight years old my father started to teach one of my brothers the violin. He’s a year younger than me and I was a bit jealous! I watched him learning, then one day I said to my dad “I want to play the violin too”, so he gave me a small fiddle and I played it – just like that. I learned just from watching him teach my brother.
AR – How many instruments do you play now?
GS – I like to stick to what I know and what’s useful. I’m not one of those people who picks up lots of different instruments, so they’re all related to violin and piano: fiddle, nyckelhapra, viola, riti (that’s a one-stringed fiddle from West Africa), hardanger (the Norwegian fiddle) and I play some ethnic hand percussion too.
AR – On your latest album Radial, you use the nyckelharpa, a Swedish instrument that is not very common in Scotland. How did you discover it? Where do you get your nyckelharpas?
GS – I first came across the nyckelharpa through hearing recordings of Olov Johansson, the nyckelharpa player in the Swedish band Väsen, amongst others, and the first real one I saw was in Scotland, where there are strong links with the Scandinavian countries. I saw some young people from Sweden playing during a North Atlantic Fiddle festival in Aberdeen and just fell in love with the sound. I vowed then to get one and learn to play it.
But they’re very difficult to get hold of in the UK. Eventually I bought a Swedish instrument made by Åke Ahlstrand at St. Chartier instrument makers’ festival in central France in 2005.
AR – Where did you learn how to play the nyckelharpa?
GS – I taught myself to play the instrument, and I went to one workshop with Swedish nyckelharpa player Johan Hedin, but I’d already got to grips with it by then. You can adapt easily if you already play the fiddle. The most difficult thing if you want to be a really strong player is the weight of the instrument and the hold. Many people have problems with this because of its awkward shape, but I devised a very comfortable ‘sling’ style of strap that is very ergonomic and helps a lot if you want to avoid muscle strain!
AR – Who are your favorite nyckelharpa players?
GS – My favorite contemporary players are Johan Hedin and Olov Johansson because they play with great energy and are quite experimental with their material, composing new tunes and doing interesting collaborations. But I love listening to the old players too, especially Eric Sahlström, who was responsible for reviving the instrument in the 1960s.
AR – Your album Radial follows a Viking route. What’s the concept behind the album?
GS – Well, on my first nyckelharpa album Harpaphonics that came out in 2009 I was so excited about the sonic possibilities that I composed nearly all the material on that album, exploring all the sounds the instrument could make. I suppose it was quite experimental. This time on Radial I wanted to pay homage to the Swedish tradition and make the music a bit more accessible, but also – because I’m not Swedish and would never claim to be a great exponent of Swedish traditional music – I wanted to give it my own stamp. So I traced a line from Scandinavia to my own homeland and traditions of jigs and reels, then used influences from even further afield.
The aim was to show that since its revival the instrument has taken on a life of its own in other parts of the world, even though it’s still not known in many places. I’ve composed new repertoire especially for it that plays to its strengths as an instrument, but has its roots away from its origins. Other people play early music, baroque, other styles, but my focus is on the folk side of the instrument, like my own fiddle tradition. But now my music has taken on a more ‘world’ music feel because those are my influences here in the UK with the great musicians from all over the world who I come into contact with. I love how they bring their own styles and contribute to our own culture with their playing.
AR – Radial features Gnawa musician Simo Lagnawi and other guests. How did you connect with these musicians?
GS – I’ve produced two album releases so far with UK-based Moroccan Gnawa master Simo Lagnawi. We met at a very rainy festival here in the UK in 2012 and got on like a house on fire – so we decided to collaborate. I didn’t know anything about Gnawa music at the time, so the first album I produced with him – Gnawa London – was a pure Gnawa album, so I could hear what he did and learn about the music. Then after that I started performing with him in his London-based Gnawa Blues All-Stars band. Then I played violin on one track of his second album The Gnawa Berber. And so after that I invited him to play on a track on Radial because I love the sound of the guembri and nyckelharpa together.
The others are James Dumbelton, who I used to play with in the band Waulk Elektrik a long time ago now! But we always connected musically and kept in touch. My son Louis Bingham is a great guitarist and knows my music very well. I love playing with him. We’ve performed together since he was a little boy. Then Luke Jones and Ben Duckworth I studied music with at Dartington College of Arts – both great players!
AR – If you could gather any musicians or musical groups to collaborate with, whom would that be?
GS – I love playing with other string players and percussion. I just recorded strings on a new album by the Senegalese kora player Kadialy Kouyate with brilliant producer Jim Palmer (who also plays percussion with Baaba Maal). I love that kora tradition! Also I’m just getting to know the music of Michalis Kouloumis, an amazing violinist from Cyprus. His Eastern Mediterranean music tradition is not well known to me and he’s an incredible exponent of those styles. So I’m looking forward to working with him in the live band that will go out to perform the material on Radial. The reason I chose him is because I layered up fiddle and nyckelharpa a lot on the album, but of course I played those parts myself, so I need someone else to do it live – and he has such a beautiful style that suits the material very well. Jim Palmer is a great musician so I hope to play a lot with him on percussion.
AR – You also run an independent record called Waulk Records. What’s the focus of the label?
GS – The focus of my label Waulk Records is to release traditional folk music of UK-based acts from West and North Africa and of Scottish and Irish and connected folk traditions. Basically the label was set up when I had a band with my bother so we could self-release and cut out all the middle men. We bought our own studio equipment and it developed from there. But everything we release is connected to our own music in some ways. Most of the acts are people I met at festivals or concerts here in the UK and great musicians that I know.
I don’t go out scouting for new acts. The first album I produced that I wasn’t actually playing on myself was Simo Lagnawi’s first album Gnawa London in 2013, then James Dumbelton’s new mandolin album Houmet Paradis and most recently Scottish flute player Freya Rae & Louis Bingham’s album Curlicue of mainly Irish and Breton music (though I did play a little bit of nyckelharpa on that). Before that I also did two collaborative albums – one with the Gambian riti player Juldeh Camara under the name of Julaba Kunda called Traders (he now plays in Robert Plant’s band The Sensational Spaceshifters) and an album Yakar with Senegalese bluesman and percussionist Amadou Diagne. Both those last two acts I toured with in the UK.
AR – How do you distribute your albums?
GS – We have a worldwide digital distribution and physical distribution in the UK through Proper Music Distribution. We also sell physical CDs worldwide through our Waulk Records website www.waulkrecords.com
AR – What music are you currently listening to?
GS – I love the fluidity and improvisation you get in West African music. One of my current favorites is ‘Kirike’ by Kasse Mady Diabate, who I had the pleasure of interviewing at WOMAD this year. While I was there I also met the guys in Ezza, a Tuareg group from Niger, Kabylie in Algeria and France based in Toulouse. I love the sound of the kamale ngoni, an instrument a bit like a kora from Mali, so I really like the music of Abou Diarra. Another favorite is Mamar Kassey – I love the Fula style. I also really like Violons Barbares because of the fiddle connection – they are two fiddlers from Bulgaria and Mongolia with a French percussionist.
AR – What new projects are you working on?
GS – I’m currently working on the live act for touring ‘Radial’ – so we’re looking for live work at festivals. I also produced the next Gnawa Caravan: Salt album from Simo Lagnawi, which is coming out soon, and I’m really excited about that. I’m playing riti, piano and violin on a few tracks on that, and it also has Guinean kora player Mosi Conde, Louis Bingham and Hassan Nainia on guitar amongst others, so it was a real collaboration.
I have produced four studio albums this year, so it’s time to get out of the studio for a while, so my real focus for now is on the live show. I also spent half of this year playing live music at Shakespeare’s Globe on London’s Southbank in their latest production of ‘As You Like It’, and though it was great to be performing at such a prestigious venue I’d much rather be taking my own music out into the world!
Discography:
Harpaphonics (Waulk Records 2008)
Traders: Julaba Kunda, with Juldeh Camara (Waulk Records, 2011)
Yakar, with Amadou Diagne (Waulk Records, 2013)
Radial (Waulk Records, 2015)
Official website: www.grissanderson.com
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.