Mother’s Blood, Sister Songs
Acclaimed Irish composer Linda Buckley has a personal and professional affinity to Iceland and in this radio series she teams up with documentary maker Helen Shaw to trace the connections between the two places, in story and song. The Icelandic female line goes directly back to Gaelic women, mostly taken as slaves, by Norwegian Vikings who settled the land over a thousand years ago. In this evocative music led documentary Buckley and Shaw travel to Iceland to hear its stories and listen to its singers.
Episode 2: Sister Songs
In the second of two programmes composer Linda Buckley and producer Helen Shaw explore what connects Ireland and Iceland in story, song and music. They meet musician Arhildur Valgardóttir who performs as ‘Adda’ and find out why the organ and choirs are at the heart of music making and song in Iceland. Cellist Kristín Lárusdóttir shows the innovative nature of Icelandic music, crossing from classical to electronica, while harpist Katie Buckley with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, at the magnificent Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik, shares her journey from Atlanta, Georgia to making a home in Iceland. Finally they meet up a real Melkorka, Melkorka Ólafsdóttir, a flautist with the orchestra, who traces her genealogy back to the first Melkorka, that slave princess of the Sagas. As she is due to give birth she shares a poem she has written about her ancestor and that sense that Icelandic women are connecting with the story and legacy of their slave Irish motherhood.
Production team: Linda Buckley, Helen Shaw, John Howard
Audio Mix: Pearse Ó Caoimh
An Athena Media Production (Ireland) for RTE lyric fm, funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland from the Television Licence Fee.
(First broadcast January 2020)
RTÉ lyric fm, Sunday 15th May, 6pm-7pm