Script development and Cèilidh dance training

This was our first Cèilidh dance event! Here's what happened; some local theater friends volunteered to learn how to dance at a Cèilidh while April played the accordion. Back in 2019, after a short visit to the Isle of Eigg, we decided to incorporate Scottish Cèilidh music into the show. April worked with several professional accordionists on Skype during the Pandemic. Mike Aman owns Monarch Accordions and he worked on her repertoire and technique. Sandy Brechin is in Edinburgh, he's one of Scotland's best known Cèilidh accordionists and he helped with the overall Scottish Ceilidh genre.

Cèilidh Dance Training

In any case, earlier this year it felt like it was time to come out of the woodwork so I reached out to several local organizations specializing in Scottish dance and one of them connected me with a Scottish couple living in Colorado who were involved with Cèilidh dancing in Scotland. We had a Skype call to discuss the specifics and penciled in a date to get together. Everyone was eager to participate and learn more about the dances and the culture behind them too. Playing the music was the easy part and everything seemed to flow naturally. We played tune sets for a Gay Gordon, a Reel and a Jig and it was so much fun! 🎭

Creating an authentic musical score for Eigg

Here's a short article about composing for musical theatre works. The publication is based in Los Angeles, but they have a Colorado connection too. The interview touches briefly on "method composing" and the nuances of creating a score that supports the musical atmosphere found on the main islands of the Inner Hebrides. To read the interview and see all the pictures select the link below.

Read the Interview at:
https://shoutoutcolorado.com/meet-april-alsup-composer-of-musical-theatre/

Yes, we're adding plenty of Ceilidh music!

We've been hard at work preparing the various musical instrument parts for the Eigg show over the pandemic. It'll be nice to get out and finally play all this music for everyone. We've decided to supplement the Eigg score with some traditional Scottish Ceilidh music with dance sequences. They are so much fun to play and really make the show come alive!

April's Ceilidh Arrangements

We have a NEW Eigg website address!

We've decided to start using a new website address: eigg.show

The one we use today, www.eiggthemusical.com, just seems too long and boring. We'll plan to redirect the old address for a while since lots of people use it as a link on their websites, but a few months ago the Web officially added several new internet TLD (top level domain) names and "show" is now an available as an extension.

Oxford defines the term "show as "a play or stage performance, especially a musical" and "www.eigg.show" is easy to remember and we just love it! What do you think? We'd love to hear from you!

We're adding an Accordion to the Eigg Score

We're nearing completion of the performance materials for Eigg the Musical and should start some readings soon. April had never written for a Ceilidh band before, but she'd fallen in love with the music and the people on this little island so over the last few months she's been learning how to play the accordion to fit it into the ensemble.

Visiting the Isle of Eigg

Here's a collection of media clips from my 2019 Summer visit to the Isle of Eigg. On the first day I wandered into the church and recorded "Your Song" by Elton John on my phone so the quality is not so good, but it was fun to reminisce the visit while putting together this short video.

Music from the show performed on Eigg!

After the the festival in Edinburgh I traveled to the Isle of Eigg to take in some of the sites. On the first full day I took a stroll and found this Church of England building just a stones throw from the Glebe barn. There was a welcome sign for all and I couldn't help playing something from the Musical on the island for the first time. 🎭😊

Introducing Sbani & Alsup

It's official Mark and April have inked a deal for co-writing "The Isle of Eigg", so without further adieu, here's the writing team of Mark Sbani and April Alsup. They've been collaborating most of the year and now they've agreed to make a go of it.

April Alsup: Music & Lyrics
Mark Sbani: Book

Eigg the Musical early development video

Here's a short promo video for Eigg the Musical. It's a medley of excerpts from five different songs with several process tidbits scattered around here and there. Eigg is truly a magical island with a long history of conflict. Hippies, a manipulative laird, ancestry, flashbacks, rivalries, revolution, tragedy, loyalty and love. What more can you ask for?

The joy of a replenished song list!

Towards the end of the Sisyphus production I started getting back into the mode of composing music. It takes about 6 months to compose the songs needed to create a full length musical. Composers are always thinking about their "next" work, but you never really know when an idea will get enough traction for you to commit to the magnitude of a full length musical. In any case, you need a bunch of songs to work with so you might as well get at it and replenish your song list with new musical ideas.

At first, you're just putting chords and melodies on paper with words scattered around here and there. Then the story emerges and the songs start having relevance to the characters and the plot, that's when the lyrics start flowing and complete songs are placed in the libretto.

For me, if the songs come, so does the story. I wouldn't be good at writing songs for a predefined script. So here's the list of songs we have to use with Eigg, I started working on them in early 2017 as the Sisyphus production geared up and I put that work in the hands of the director. There are nearly 50 new songs here! I'm so thankful they came together like they did.

An interesting logo concept

We've started thinking about logo concepts for marketing/branding and one idea we have is to form a heart when Ross and Kaja's hands come together. The heart actually resembles the outline of the island and we are exploring ways to use the concept in the script. It's a clever idea, but we'll have to see if we get any traction with it.

I've always enjoyed creating logo concepts. The current logo is really just a placeholder. Now we get to explore combining elements from the story with messaging, visuals and typography. I'll reach out to our graphic designer and see what they think. I can't wait to see what they come up with...stay tuned!

ALPHA1...we have a song list...do you read me Houston...over

I thought it might be fun to document the steps we take creating Eigg the Musical; after all, this is a "blog" and that's short for "web log"...right? I've left out some of the preliminary steps because you never really know when or if a project is going to reach the tipping point, but we're there now. The initial concept came in mid 2017 after reading about the Isle of Eigg on Wikipedia. It was a bit touch and go at first, but songs came and the story emerged. It's really quite magical, you have to do a lot of research and get out of the box too. I think we (composers) do this differently, I find it important to let the music drive the story and if the music comes, so does the story; in any case, it takes roughly 6 months to write the songs needed for a full length musical. Here's a preliminary set of songs, but trust me this will change! songs will come...songs will go, as we fully develop the libretto (more to come!)

A short video clip of the 60 Minutes experience on Eigg

Here's a short video clip of the 60 Minutes' adventure to the Isle of Eigg. The camera shots are amazing and really capture the beauty of this place. We all enjoyed listening to Draggan Mihailovich talk about the experience and the magic of the small island.

The Isle of Eigg

The island of Eigg has a long history of conflict, situated off the coast of Scotland it has always been vulnerable to attack. The natural resources found on this remote island are legend, the waters of Loch Nam Ban Mora once gave birth to women of unusual height and physical strength, the magical powers found in the "Singing Sands" near the Bay of Laig were used to build the mighty Viking ships and the cathedral caves below Mount Sgurr helped protect the island's faithful during the Jacobite rebellions.

Today, the inhabitants of Eigg face a different type of invader; a foreigner with his own vision for Eigg, willing to purchase the island and use the land as he sees fit. Regrettably, with his ownership comes much anxiety among the residents. Who will prevail in this clash between the haves and the have nots? Stay tuned!

First official blog post

You can take the person out of Eigg, but you can't take Eigg out of the person!