composer
arranger
ensemble leader
performer
world music ensemble performance educator
Albums
Fundraiser for Ukraine
Performed by Hard Times Kapelye and friends, we hope that this track will prove popular and raise significant sums for humanitarian needs in Ukraine (DEC Ukraine Appeal).
Traditional klezmer dance and Ukrainian song
Material arranged by Richard Fay and Sam Gee
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Sam Gee
Ensemble Projects
Amid the Mirk Over the Irk
‘Amid the Mirk Over the Irk: When Irish Meets Klezmer’ is an imagined musical meeting of two of Manchester’s long-established and prominent immigrant communities: the Irish and the Jewish.
Vessels of Song
Vessels of Song is the latest show created and performed by Klezmorim of Manchester. Through music and narration, it explores the journeys made by klezmer over the years and also the journeys made by musicians with klezmer.
Klezmer Klassica
The initial idea for Klezmer Klassica was first explored in one segment in the Vessels of Song concert. With Daniel Mawson, Sophie Sully, and Lucy Hibberd, I wanted to explore the interfaces between klezmer and a broadly understood 'classical' musical world.
Hard Times Orkestar
The Hard Times Orkestar began (around 2003) as an ad hoc grouping of colleagues and friends who underused instruments and neglected musical talents which could be combined in events for student parties, community events, fundraising concerts and so on.
Hard Times Kapelye
The Hard Times Kapelye are a Manchester-based six piece Klezmer group playing a mixture of traditional Klezmer tunes and original numbers inspired by the music of the Balkans.
Levvy Metal
Levvy Metal are based in Levenshulme and play a mix of traditional Balkan brass band music, klezmer, Breton gavottes and original compositions. With a line-up including sousaphone, helicon, accordion, percussion, saxophones, clarinet, trumpet and flugelhorn...
Ar Ben Y Clogwyn
Along the cliffs from Nant Bach to Trefor beach, on an edge rampant with golden lichen accompanied by shrieks above the wind, I look across to gull-encrusted Ynys Fawr and Ynys Fach, granite stumps exposed by the receding sea gently glistening the pebbles of BwIch Glas as the sleepy sun lingers and Wicklow awaits. Tranquility itself. Clutching the rock, patches of colour, survivors of whipped salt spray, spring squill, thift, and sea campion. Below, the ramped stones telling of tidal fury, the sea-arch evidence of eroding waves. Force over time. My boot trod, my moment here, incidental.
Composed by Richard Fay
Video and Audio by Sam Gee
Yr Eifl / Y Mynydd Wedi'i Gerfio
Yr Eifl is a three-peaked mountain range that stands at the eastern end of Pen Llŷn (Lleyn Peninsula) in North Wales. Although not high, its presence is strong, rising straight from the sea, with its most inland peak topped by an Iron Age hill settlement (Tre'r Ceiri, or 'Town of the Giants'), and with the peak nearest the sea carved by a century or more of quarrying activity. This film by Sam Gee, as accompanied by Richard Fay's compositions, captures some of this wondrous landscape - the distinctive silhouette, the plunging cliffs into the sea, the fine detail (like medieval cathedral supporting pillars) of the carved granite, the mysterious 'castles' of the old quarry, and the transient weather bringing shifts in light and fresh lines of sight.
Composed by Richard Fay
Video and Audio by Sam Gee
Seán Mannion
Back in May 2020, the Covid pandemic was raging and so many people, especially the vulnerable, were lost, Sean amongst them. I wrote this piece in his memory, and it can stand also as a memorial to all those who were taken from us prematurely.
This track features Sam Gee on soprano sax (and his recording and filming skills are also on display), Hilary Dennis (on piano), Delia Stevens (on percussion), and Sophie Sully (on double bass).
Composed by Richard Fay
Video and Audio by Sam Gee
Aberdaron
Aberdaron, the small village at the western tip o the Lleyn Peninsula in North Wales, is both a place of childhood holidays and of more recent visits with Jacqueline. When we go now, we tend to stay in the hotel overlooking the beach, the waves a background to our sleeping, and to our pre-breakfast strides down the length of the sands. This simple tune arose from these moments of solace with the sea, with the harp expressing the ins and outs of the waves, and the piano hinting at the sea breeze and the gull cries.
Composed by Richard Fay
Video and Audio by Sam Gee
The Heron Pool
When the tide is at its lowest, an extra bay is accessible at the end of Aberdaron beach, and there one morning before breakfast, in splendid isolation we saw the heron in a pool left by the retreating waters - the inspiration for The Heron Pool (2009), the slightly awkward melody suggestive I hope of the ungainly beauty of this creature.
Composed by Richard Fay
Artwork by Claire Loveday
Video and Audio by Sam Gee
From the album Hamosity: Music in Hard Times
Frankenitsa Horo
I am delighted to share this new animation by Claire Loveday for which my composition forms the backdrop. The music was inspired by long-time collaborator Frankie McCormick as recorded mixed and mastered by Sam Gee. I remain in awe of Claire's imagination as well as technical skills. Wonderful
Composed by Richard Fay
Animation by Claire Loveday
Mixing & Mastering by Sam Gee
Featured on the album Hamosity: Music in Hard Times
Hamosity Horo
Hamosity Horo gives the album Hamosity it’s name, a piece filmic in its procession and manic dance scene-setting, featuring improvisations by Daniel Mawson (clarinet) and Pierre Flasse (trombone).
Composed by Richard Fay
Animation by Claire Loveday
Mixing & Mastering by Sam Gee
Featured on the album Hamosity: Music in Hard Times
In Remembrance of Lost Worlds
Of the many worlds this could refer to, perhaps I had in mind the lost Yiddish-speaking shtetls of Eastern Europe before the years of oppression, pogrom, and genocide destroyed them forever, leaving musical traces in the diaspora flows of klezmer, flows that in time swept me up too. For sure, klezmer has grown within me and grown in significance for me since I acquired my first archival and revival recordings back in 1984, and it is has both puzzled and haunted me since I looked for, and failed to find, traces of it when I lived in Poland in 1988. Now, surrounded by it, its current vitality stands in stark contrast to the largely lost worlds from which it came.
Composed by Richard Fay
Recorded and animated by Sam Gee
Photography by Artur Worobiej
From the album Helix: Music for Hard Times
Going Home (to Ruby)
As the final track on the album ‘Hamosity: Music in Hard Times’, the music comes to a close with the gentle Going Home (to Ruby), which evokes both the joy of returning to the welcome of home and the sadness of bereavement.
Performed by:
Shelia Seal – piano
Jacqueline Fay – viola
Composed by Richard Fay
Recorded by Sam Gee
Featured on the album Hamosity: Music in Hard Times