Review by Irish Music Magazine
The Woodlands duo Kristina Leesik (fiddle/vocals) and Justyna Krzyżanowska (harp/vocals), met as students at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden. Both of them later studied music in Scotland, which led them to focus on that country’s traditional music, song and dance, and later extending their interests to Irish music.
Their arrangements of tunes familiar and those not so familiar are delightfully varied and inventive. Kristina’s fiddling ranges through the languid and dreamy right through the sprightly driving, and more that is inventive and exciting. Justyna’s mastery of the strings displays technique and skill born of years of study and practice, that is altogether engaging.
They say that this, their “first full-length album featuring traditional Scottish, Gaelic and Irish music as well as own compositions (is) influenced by the Celtic, Swedish and jazz traditions”. A good example of their imaginative arrangement is evident in their variant of the song The Old Man from Over the Sea that’s similar to that of the English singer Frankie Armstrong’s recording on a 1966 Topic Records LP The Bird in the Bush. Steve Roud says of this song: “The old man’s courtship is an ancient joke of which country folk never seemed to tire.” He adds the one of the earliest variants was published in London in 1730.
Harpist Justyna’s expert and musical fingering trips the light fantastic in the dance tune medley On the Danforth/The Rainy Day/Armstrong’s, and Kristina’s fiddling sounds like she was born to the Scottish/Irish fiddling traditions. I have to say that while I enjoyed all their vocal numbers, I was particularly taken with their rendition of Emigrantvisa, their title for the Scottish Gàidhlig emigrant song Dean Cadalan Sàmhach translated into Swedish: “That in America we are now/ There will be nuts, there will be apples/ And the sugar grows.”
I liked this album for its great musicality and varied moods evident in the traditional and the more recent compositions, some of them by the duo themselves. A commendable and confident first album that offers much promise for the future.
Aidan O’Hara at irishmusicmagazine.com
