Camilla Griehsel's Mamasongue: A musical delight
A warm, joyful, and slightly chaotic air of celebration greeted the audience arriving for a preview of Camilla Griehsel’s Mamasongue in Skibbereen town hall.
Mamasongue is part-show, part-gig: An eclectic array of songs in six languages, interwoven with elements of story-telling, visuals by local artist Maria Pizzuti, and costume changes.
Divided into five sections, named after the Greek words for different kinds of love, the show also loosely charts the personal progress of the chanteuse’s own life, starting in childhood.
Emerging onto the stage after the band, barefoot and clad in a long dress bedecked with stars and planets, Griehsel knelt at a low stand and began by telling the audience about a book she had as a child, reading an extract before launching into the first cycle of songs, ‘Philia’.
Swedish-born Griehsel, who lives in Schull, is nothing if not a seasoned performer.
A classically trained soprano, her 30-year career has encompassed everything from a brief stint in an 1980s chart pop band to a love affair with Latin American folk music.
For Mamasongue, she has what she refers to as her “dream team”: guitarist Niwel Tsumbu, visiting South African bassist Concord Nkabinde, percussionist Éamonn Cagney, former Therapy? drummer Graham Hopkins, and pianist Maurice Seezer.
The result was a musical delight, with a bunch of musicians of extraordinary talent taking on material that included original compositions by members of the band.
Griehsel’s assured and versatile vocals, laden with emotion, rested atop virtuosic flourishes by percussionist, Cagney, and guitarist, Tsumbu, who frequently play together and whose bond was evident on stage.
As a gig, Mamasongue was a joy. As a show and a work in progress, the first-half felt over-long.
The narrative element, based on Griehsel’s much-loved childhood book, was intermingled with various other quasi-mystical spoken passages, and these, at times, confused.
Sorrow couldn’t be avoided, as Griehsel paid tribute to her ex-husband, Colin Vearnecombe, and former band member, Fergus O’Farrell, both of whom died in 2016, with interpretations of their songs.
“We all love you,” an audience member yelled from the crowd to a round of applause, as Griehsel thanked her audience, before finishing with Fergus O’Farrell’s soaringly innocent ‘Sail On’, a suitably emotional finale.
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