Ciaozie!

This morning we left St. Pierre, Italy, for Ayr, Scotland. We will stay in Reims outside of Paris tonight, continue on to Middelburg, Netherlands, tomorrow, and catch an overnight ferry to Scotland the following day.

The weather today is poetically appropriate. For the past week in the Aosta Valley, we basically had nothing but sunshine and occasional clouds. Since this morning, however, we've had nothing but rain and cloudy skies for the 6.5 hours we've been in the van. Sad weather, sadder day. [Editorial note: the sun appeared as I finished writing this post...weird.]

This past weekend has been tough, as it's been filled with extended goodbyes and giant dinner celebrations. On Saturday, the Celtica Clan took us to a restaurant up at the top of the mountains in Aosta:


On Sunday, we performed a small set in our rehearsal space for some of the Clan and some of St. Pierre's public officials as a thank you for their generosity in letting us rehearse in the Valley as we prepared for this tour. The performance was made extra special as Iain (on whistle) and Federico (on bodhran) performed the Barrage setting of "Anach Cuan" with our backline. After dinner, a few of the clan pipers and drummers played a set of tunes for dancing (an important part of clan gatherings). Moreover, we once again got to play "Greenlands," the 45-second Clan anthem that is sung and repeated on end with unbelievable enthusiasm (last year at the final night of Celtica, we played it for about 45 minutes straight--in this smaller setting, we played an abbreviated version that lasted about 10 minutes).


Last night, we had a giant pizza party for Alicia's birthday at an outdoor restaurant that served the best pizza I've ever had (...in the world).


[Warning: philosophical, touchy-feely things ahead.]

I know I've gushed before about how much I love these people, but think I finally have some clarity about how to describe just why they are so wonderful. It's as though they've been enlightened with some way of being that is just right, in every sense of the word. On the whole, they value friendship, respect, decency, and humanity, but they do it all with a sense of honesty that is so unbelievably humbling. Nearly every interaction seems poignant, and it's only magnified by the language barrier; that these values are communicated through often-broken English is even more staggering.

But I guess that's the whole point: language, though obviously useful, can be rendered superfluous when relating to others as humans and not just representatives of a specific culture.

So will I miss these people? The answer is clearly yes. But to what degree cannot be described.

On a lighter note, I should take a moment to explain the title of this post. As you probably have noticed, abbreviations have recently become pretty hip in American pop culture. So, in learning conversational Italian (i.e. hello, goodbye, thank you, and please), I found an opportunity to create a useful abbreviation. It's common to hear people say, "Ciao, grazie," (in English, "Bye, thanks") when they leave restaurants, stores, etc. So, I thought it would be useful to combine those words into "Ciaozie!" Excited about this clever creation, I eagerly shared it with Federico and Iain the other night. They laughed as they explained the one problem with my abbreviation: "zie" means "aunts" in Italian...so I'm actually saying "Bye, aunts!"

Oh well. Even if my attempts to abbreviate a foreign language backfired, at least I've got a good inside joke out of it!

To Iain and Fede, ciaozie!

Amici della Strada--or--Friends from the Road

I think this may have been the most wonderful handful of days in the past 2.5 years of touring with Barrage...and though I'm prone to exaggeration and hyperbole, I don't intend that statement as such. But, really, this handful of days was what it was because of the fact that this is our 3rd time to Aosta, Italy.

Touring with Barrage is an exercise in rapidly experiencing the arc of a great friendship. Imagine, if you will, the last time you met someone for the first time and you just hit it off right away: great conversation, great laughs, great times. Given normal life circumstances, you might very well become good friends with that person, especially if you and said person live in the same city. Now, imagine that when that conversation came to a close, you knew odds were strong you'd never see that person again (and not because you actively chose to not see them). That is so often what life is like on the road. We go to these amazing places, meet amazingly wonderful people, and then say goodbye, without a clue as to whether or not our paths will ever cross again. We frequently leave venues, parties, etc., and say to ourselves things like, "Wow, So-and-so was really great--I feel like we'd be really great friends if we lived in the same city."

That being said, I feel absurdly lucky that we're back in Aosta, and I've been able to spend quality time with three truly great friends: Federico, Claudio, and Iain. I've met them over the past three years, but finally got to hang out with them outside the confines of a performance this past week. What's more, my admiration and respect for them has grown as I've spent more time with them, an often hard-to-find quality in friendships.

On Thursday, we had a day off, so I went to Federico's house to hang out with him and Iain, and also to help him prepare for his birthday party (which was Friday night). Federico's house, in Chatillon, was built by his grandfather into the side of a mountain:

His house is between a switchback on the side of a mountain--the edge of the road is up on the left.

Looking back at the driveway.

The far side of the house.

Looking down into the valley.

Building tables in preparation for the birthday dinner.

The front room.

Yup, a giant piece of mountain rock is the bathroom ceiling.

Going upstairs to Federico's bedroom--once again, mountain ceiling. Ridiculous, right?!

In Federico's room, with a giant piece of mountain exposed through the wall.

I can't imagine what it would be like to grow up and see sunsets like this every evening.

With Federico.

I think that day neared perfection in a way I've not experienced in recent memory. I don't know if there's a way to explain how this was. So much of the time spent with Iain and Federico is spent trying to navigate the language barrier, which, if you've never done this with anyone, has to be one of life's greatest, most poignant, and most hilarious pleasures. Both Iain and Federico speak conversational English, but our conversations are also filled with the blank "I don't understand" stares. Truly priceless moments. Iain taught me tunes all afternoon, and then we'd play them with Federico on drums. I showed them my house on Google maps, awed by the distance between Arizona and Aosta. We enjoyed lunch outside in the breeze, and dinner inside the coziest of kitchens. And, most importantly, I think we each understood the circumstantial craziness of our friendships.

Sheer, utter happiness all day long--the kind where your face hurts because you can't stop smiling.

After dinner, Iain and I picked up Claudio and Daniel, and went to hear a famous French pipe band play in Aosta. The concert was rockin', but the company was better.

Friday night was Federico's birthday party...and when I say party, I should qualify that this was a party of grand proportions: Iain facetiously joked that it was going to be like an episode of MTV's "My Super Sweet 16," and that Barrage was the famous guest. There was a stage (complete with performances by 3 separate bands of Federico's friends), ridiculous amounts of delicious food prepared by Federico's dad, and all around good times. We even took to the stage for about 30 minutes as a special gift to Federico (for the record, I do believe it's the first time Barrage has played at a birthday party)!

The view during dinner.
(You can always click on the pictures in my blog to see them as larger images. I'd definitely recommend it for this one!)

Dean even had a mixing board!

Daniel jammed out on pipes with Iain and Federico.

And then there was more jamming!

Federico getting his cake.

In the same way that I wish I could bring my friends from home on the road, I also wish I could bring my friends from the road to my home. Now wouldn't that be something?

[P.S. Iain and Federico, I hope Google translator did this post justice!]

My Italian Family

After a long summer off, we're finally back on the road and getting into the swing of things. But before I get blogging about current happenings, there are some updates!

This summer marked the departures of both Jason Hurwitz (4 years) and Kiana Weber (1 year). They're both going back to school: Jason just started pursuing a dual MBA/MA in Arts Administration at the University of Cincinnati, and Kiana is back at the University of Michigan finishing up her degrees in Violin Performance and Music Education. It's weird no longer having Jason as it seemed I never really knew Barrage without him (we auditioned together in 2006 and he'd been in it since then), and I learned so much from Kiana in just one year (for anyone who came to my recital, she's the person who taught me how to chop!). They will both be missed--best of luck to each of you, Jason and Kiana!

In happier news, we're welcoming Daniel Pentecost (of Gallatin, TN) into the band! Today was our first real day of training with him (he did all of his initial training in Calgary while we were in China in May), even though he's already had his first full performance. Kiana's replacement has yet to be named, so Alicia is back filling in for this tour of Europe.

Our first show was two nights ago at the Magiaceltica festival in Pergine, Italy (about 12 km from Trento, the nearest big city). This was actually one of my first gigs in Barrage when I joined over 2 years ago, so it was great to be back again. I never posted photos of this location, though, so now I finally can!

It's so great being back in Italy, and being with the most wonderful people I've met in my travels. The "Clan," as I like to affectionately call them, are a specific group of Italians who strongly identify with their Celtic roots (and yes, there are actually Celtic roots in Northern Italy). We first met them playing at Celtica in 2008, and then we headlined the festival last summer. There are not ample words to describe how wonderful they are...they are just the quintessential example of what it means to be a good and kind human beings. I absolutely love being with them. They're like family, really.

While the Magiaceltica festival is not run by the Clan (who runs Celtica), many of the Clan showed up to support us.

This castle is on the hill directly behind the stage, and is lit at night, making it visible to the audience during the performance.

That's the castle from a different angle, where our hotel was located.

The area in front of the stage.

And in the tradition of last year's performance, our friend Iain painted our faces!

Iain painting Daniel's face.

Faces painted and ready to go! (Though not really visible in this picture, each girl had a blue dot on her temple.)

Daniel playing the bagpipes in his first show!

With Iain and Federico after the show.

After the show, Iain and Federico rode back to the hotel with us since the Clan was staying there as well. What happened during the van ride back may be one of the coolest (and most musical) things to ever happen in a van. Both Iain and Federico are ridiculously talented musicians; Iain plays traditional flutes and whistles, and Federico plays the drums and piano. Earlier in the day, I could have sworn I had heard Iain playing "Anach Cuan," an insanely awesome whistle tune that Ben Gunnery, a Barrage alum, used to play in the show. When we asked Iain about it, he didn't instantly recognize the name...so Tim whipped out his laptop to play the recording off of one of Barrage's earlier albums. At which point, Iain remembered it:

How awesome is that?! More than the fact that Iain can play Anach Cuan, I love the fact that he played it for us in a van. Iain, you are too cool for words.

As I wrap up this post in anticipation of tonight's dinner with the Clan, I must note that the only thing better than writing this post has been the setting in which I've been writing it. Here's what I see out my window in St. Pierre (which is open, allowing a gentle breeze to blow through):

It's so good to be back.