Chris Norman...

[Jack]

Anybody here familiar with Chris Norman? He's a traditional musician from Nova Scotia...

I saw him (and his group) perform tonight.

He's really amazing.

I especially liked the tune he composed for his dead mother.

He's more technically a flute player, but I think this forum will be ok. There are more people here anyway...

[MacNeil]

He's more technically a flute player, but I think this forum will be ok.

Unless I'm wrong, he played whistle on the soundtrack to Titanic, so posting here would be appropriate.

I met him once, after a Baltimore Consort performance near Seattle. Quite nice and down to earth. (Actually, what I remember most about that post-concert socializing was a couple of lutenist friends of mine collaring Ronn McFarlane and getting in a long and somewhat distatsteful conversation on the methods of preparing and preserving gut strings. I was trying my hardest to pay attention to Chris, Custer LaRue, or anyone other than the gut-string triumverate...)

[khl]

He's more technically a flute player, but I think this forum will be ok.

Unless I'm wrong, he played whistle on the soundtrack to Titanic

I'm pretty certain Tony Hinnigan played whistle for this. Hadn't heard that there were others, but maybe. . . ?


Cranberry,
What's his group's name? Has he released any CDs that you know of?

[brewerpaul]

Chris Norman is fabulous. I heard and met him several times when the Baltimore Consort played (and recorded) at the music hall in Troy, NY.
He is indeed a very down to earth guy. I've heard him play flute, pipes, whistle and recorder, all superbly.
One older album of his you may want to find is called The Man With The Wooden Flute.

Chris is a great teacher too. I went to a one hour workshop with him a few years ago at a festival and it was great. Chris runs a summer flute workshop in Nova Scotia appropriately named Boxwood (see http://www.boxwood.org/). There's also a schedule of his group's tours at that site.

[chas]

Chris does play a boxwood whistle or two made by Glenn Schultz.

I've had the good fortune to see him play a number of times, including a recent outdoor concert that was moved indoors because of a power outage. The show was held inside a house on the grounds, unamplified. We sat about six feet from him.

I've also had the good fortune to have taken a couple of private lessons with him. He's a wonderful teacher, with remarkable insight and, as you might expect, a way of finding the music within the music.

KHL wrote:

What's his group's name? Has he released any CDs that you know of?

His current group is the Chris Norman Ensemble; for a number of years he was with the Baltimore Consort; he also made a few albums with, I think, Helicon (Ken Kolodner on hammered dulcimer and a fiddler whose name escapes me right now).

I love all of his albums, but three stand out especially: The Man with the Wooden Flute, The Beauty of the North, and The Mad Buckgoat (Baltimore Consort). He's good at any style, but you can really tell that his heart's largely in Canadian music. The Baltimore Consort play an interesting style, the kind of music you might have heard in a parlor in the 1600's-1700's -- sort of a combination of early, Baroque, and folk music. They're all topnotch musicians, too.

[SteveK]

I love Chris Norman's playing. When I first got The Man With the Wooden Flute, I played it constantly. I still love it. I also like The Beauty of the North and the Baltimore Consort CDs.

He was very helpful to me at a festival in Michigan. I asked him about wooden flutes, where to buy, etc. He described his Rod Cameron flute, which was pretty new at the time. I went backstage after the Helicon show and he just shoved the flute at me and pointed out the fine keywork.

He also taught a whistle workshop at the festival. He had an orange whistle of the Generation type. It looked like an ordinary cheap whistle but he could make it sing. He played some American tunes at the workshop and talked about using rolls and other ornaments for old time music.

I think the tune about his mother is The Flower of Port Williams. He has a CD with that title. It's not one of my favourites though. He has taken quite an interest in Scottish music and his CD The Caledonian Flute is amazing. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to be that good.

[Jack]

I started to stay and talk to him, and ask if I could have his Bb flute but it was late and I was tired...

[carrie]

Chris Norman, as my daughter and her friends used to say about their friend Ryan, is the meaning of life. I absolutely love his flute playing and musicianship. One of these days I will get to Boxwood. Man with a Wooden Flute is also one of my favorite recordings. Glad you had a chance to hear him, Cran!

Carol

[Wormdiet]

I've actually been listening to Chris Norman/Baltimore COnsort for far longer than say, Matt Molloy or other ITM types. I did early music in college, and got hooked on the Baltimore Consort. I love how Chris makes early music vibrant, playful, and exciting.

I am surprised nobody has mentioned Bonnie Dundee or Banks of the Helicon. They are both Scottish early music, and the tunes lie at the interface between "traditional" music and Renaissance "early" music. Absolutely fantastic stuff. I emember covering some of the instrumental pieces with a very amateur group in college. We had like 2 or 3 gigs total. This was in my pre-flute days, so I had the job of playing bass lines on a fretted viola da gamba. Good times!

[Jack]

Watching (and hearing) Chris play (I was in the 2nd row) inspired me to want to get better at flute. I'm thinking about buying an Owell when I can. The giant wooden Bb he played was just beautiful.

[Wormdiet]

Watching (and hearing) Chris play (I was in the 2nd row) inspired me to want to get better at flute. I'm thinking about buying an Owell when I can. The giant wooden Bb he played was just beautiful.

Low flutes =

His track on WFO II is quite awesome as well - especially the middle tune.

[kkrell]

Watching (and hearing) Chris play (I was in the 2nd row) inspired me to want to get better at flute. I'm thinking about buying an Owell when I can. The giant wooden Bb he played was just beautiful.

Low flutes =

His track on WFO II is quite awesome as well - especially the middle tune.

Which is BTW from "The Caledonian Flute" CD, just with the titles listed as mentioned in the booklet.

Kevin Krell

[michael_coleman]

I used one of his songs from Man with the Wooden Flute for the processional at my wedding. Carolan's "Fairy Queen". The guy I just bought my 6 key M&E loves Norman so much he goes to Boxwood every year and was inspired to get an 8 keyed Rod Cameron like Chris Norman. I played the flute, quite nice, and relatively small bore for such a full sound. Nice keys too.

[Jack]

quite nice, and relatively small bore for such a full sound. Nice keys too.

I sat close enough to see the flute pretty well, and I agree.

[chas]

I used one of his songs from Man with the Wooden Flute for the processional at my wedding. Carolan's "Fairy Queen". The guy I just bought my 6 key M&E loves Norman so much he goes to Boxwood every year and was inspired to get an 8 keyed Rod Cameron like Chris Norman. I played the flute, quite nice, and relatively small bore for such a full sound. Nice keys too.

I believe Chris's Cameron flute is almost an exact duplicate (in blackwood) of his original boxwood Rudall and Rose. I played a boxwood duplicate of the same flute at Pat Olwell's. Olwell's standard Rudall-style model is also a facsimile of the famous Rudall, but with the tone holes tweaked a little to bring it into tune at A440, and, of course, with the Olwell embouchure cut.