The Speech Project by Gerry Diver

“Gerry Diver’s ‘Speech Project’ is a pure gem of an album. I keep returning to it. I get carried away each time….. Gerry has produced a very special collection, lovingly recorded and accompanied. I feel privileged to be a small part of it. For me, this is essential listening.” Christy Moore (Dublin Jan 2012)

Four years in the making, The Speech Project is a ground-breaking collection of new musical works by Gerry Diver inspired by and incorporating recordings of the spoken word of seminal Irish folk musicians including Christy Moore, Paddy Moloney of The Chieftans, Joe Cooley and Danny Meehan.

The Speech Project – On Tour in March 2012 from Gerry Diver on Vimeo.

Gerry Diver, a musician, composer and producer, born into an Irish family in Manchester and relocated to Ireland in his teens. Former member of Irish world music group Siné and Shane McGowan’s The Popes, as well as guest musician with among others Van Morrison and uber rock producer Youth, Gerry has more recently begun to focus more of production and composing, working out of his studio in South London.

In 2007 he produced the Mojo Folk Album of the Year and BBC Folk Award nominated album ‘Wild And Undaunted’ by Lisa Knapp, but had already begun work of The Speech Project, travelling to Ireland to make face-to-face recordings with Paddy Moloney and Christy Moore and to trawl the archives and back catalogues for spoken word recordings of older musicians, including Kerry accordionist Joe Cooley (1924-1973).

Taking this all back to his Tooting studio he extracted key phrases from the recordings, and taking the rhythm, pitch and phrasing as inspiration, he began to compose a series of works that are uniquely Irish, ground-breaking in concept and stunningly beautiful. Between production work for artists including Alasdair Roberts, Sam Lee and ex-Beautiful South’s Paul Heaton, Gerry completed the collection of works which he has called The Speech Project.

The show will feature musicians including Gerry Diver, with special guest Lisa Knapp, plus specially commissioned accompanying videos for selected works, all interacting live with the spoken word recordings of the Irish musicians used in the Speech Project recordings.

Pre concert talk – Gerry Divers will give brief introduction and welcomes questions on The Speech Project. 7pm.

For a short documentary about the project plus tracks go to www.speechproject.net

Support comes from Fischer: Price

Fischer Price are a folk duo focusing the transformation wrought in traditional songs and ballads from the British Isles when they were absorbed into the emerging blues and gospel repertoires of North America.