Locked down Bucklebury musician gets by with a little help from Kennet friends
Finola Southgate goes back to her roots for 13-track Sister Sessions
MUSICIAN Finola Southgate was born and raised in Bucklebury and has been back with her family since March after living away for many years.
A former Kennet School pupil, she counts herself lucky to have had so many opportunities to practise and perform music and theatre growing up, which she continued to pursue through societies and groups at university and abroad. In Finola’s final year of university, she wrote a musical based on stories of her mother’s experience growing up in a convent school, history of Irish
immigration into the UK and societal changes of the 1960s. We’ll Have Nun of It was a finalist for Pleasance’s Charlie Hartill Award for emerging theatre 2020 and was originally meant to go up to the Edinburgh Fringe.
“Growing up living so near The Watermill, alongside Rosie Dart the director based in Wargrave, had a key influence on our work,” says Finola.
“Alongside Honor Halford-Macleod, the musical director, we incorporated actor-musicianship to the core of our piece and ethos as a company. Hence Sister Sister Productions was born from our collaboration.”
And so they are continuing to make new work, check it out on:
Facebook: @sisterprods
Instagram: @sisterprods
Twitter: @sisterprods
Tiktok: @sistersister.productions
Website: www.sistersisterprods.com
“Despite all the challenges of 2020, our team working in education, international mobility and TV production – Sister Sessions – was the highlight, a chance to play in the beautiful acoustics of Wargrave church for two days to record and film with no prior rehearsal in the space with what ended up being 13 tracks.
“From setting up, filming, performing, all the tech, recording, and producing the desired musical texture for live sessions, normally a large scale team of people could be required.
“With the Government restrictions at the time of filming a few months back and pre-lockdown, we had to do
everything with six people who were able to meet.”
Having not been based back in West Berkshire for a long time, Finola didn’t know immediately the right locations or people to contact to get the music sorted.
“So I looked to my Kennet School community and A-level class. Getting back in touch with Giles Stelfox and Bryony Rawstron, who I had grown up learning to perform and play music with, was the best decision the year brought me.
“Giles and I worked on one of the tracks together and he was able to play bass, do set up, record and mix our session. Bryony played in all the cello lines and improvised on some of the more intimate numbers.”
The first release, Return to these Roots, explores exactly as the title says in our current surroundings. “Coming back home has been full of lessons and adjustments to settle back in. Above all, as the song says, this year it’s all been about trying to
appreciate what I hold dear and taking each day at a time.
“On a musical level, as Giles helped to produce the track, our hours of Soul Band rehearsals and concerts
infiltrated into the Motown feel of the song. We will also be releasing a studio version of this.”
The second release, Ghost, is an echo to when distance is a constant and feelings of one-sided conversations can start to fatigue us and weary us. “Although I wrote this a few years ago, the lyrics feel more poignant now more than ever when we have so much time and space to rethink and reanalyse our lives and relationships.”
The whole Sister Sessions album has now been released on Spotify and videos have been posted on to the Sister Sister YouTube page. You can follow them on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to stay up to date with news and releases.
“These live sessions are testament to returning to your roots, rekindling old musical friendships and the power of bringing people from different parts of your life together to collaborate in what has been a strange and distant year. With friends from further afield and wonderful former school friends joining together to make music, it reminded me of what I owe to those beginning days with hours spent in music block practice rooms and lunchtime societies.
“Thank you to Rhys, Rosie, Giles, Bryony and Honor for your talent and joy.
“May the year ahead bring future collaboration as these roots find their way back home.”
Rhys Rodrigues and Bryony Rawstron
Honor Halford-Macleod
