Irish singer Rebecca Winckworth has graced stages around the world. She has performed with world-famous groups like Anuna, Celtic Woman, and Celtic Nights. During lockdown, Rebecca touched hearts by singing concerts from her balcony and then went on to organize a highly successful online concert series entitled, “Citizens of Song.”
Natasha Barbieri: Rebecca, you grew up with such a rich heritage of Irish music. What are some of the first songs you remember from when you were growing up?
Rebecca Winckworth: I grew up in a family [where] music was abundant! Everything from classical and opera, to jazz and musical theatre. We were also free to explore whatever music we liked and I remember taking eager trips to the CD stores to treat ourselves to the latest “Smash Hits” which we loved in particular!
I have to say that the first songs I remember learning were “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Castle on a Cloud”- both musical theatre classics, of course.
Natasha Barbieri: In addition to singing, you also play the piano and harp. What are your favorite parts of each of these instruments and do you often accompany yourself?
Rebecca Winckworth: I wouldn’t call myself a great pianist nor harpist at all, as I rarely practised enough to master them, sadly! However, they are a wonderful foundation to music in general and teach us sightseeing much more in-depth than vocal training alone would do. Nowadays, I accompany myself quietly at home when I am learning new music as I am a better reader on the piano than I would be purely singing. In particular, I adore the piano – it gives such a solid and yet versatile [accompaniment] to any genre of music!
Natasha Barbieri: Besides traditional Irish singing, you’ve also studied classical technique. What were some of the repertoire choices you enjoyed from your studies and did you participate in any memorable scenes/roles while studying classical?
Rebecca Winckworth: I had the pleasure of studying with some wonderful teachers over the years, including the renowned Mary Brennan from the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Mary particularly focused our training on Italian arias, which I loved as Italian is simply the most romantic language in the world!
Natasha Barbieri: You became involved with ‘Anuna’ while quite young. What was it like to grow up musically with such fantastic musicians?
Rebecca Winckworth: Anúna was the beginning of everything in terms of my professional career. It was extremely formative but also extremely tough! We are expected to be at a certain level every second of every performance and in order to reach that we would practise one bar of music over and over for up to an hour sometimes. Every breath, every word, every sound was analysed by Michael as he is a pure musical genius and perfectionist, and in retrospect, I learnt so much!
Natasha Barbieri: Did you have a favorite song or solo during your Anuna years?
Rebecca Winckworth: I love all Anúna music- there is something so special about it that I cannot put into words. Anúna is more than music, it is an entity too. If I had to choose my favourite pieces, they would be Pie Jesu, Danny Boy, and Midnight.
Natasha Barbieri: Celtic Woman is truly beloved especially by American audiences. Did you immediately find their fanbase pretty welcoming?
Rebecca Winckworth: Yes, Celtic Woman fans are incredibly welcoming and encouraging. I had a lovely experience meeting them and seeing their support online.
Natasha Barbieri: Tell us a little bit about the other Celtic tours you have been involved with.
Rebecca Winckworth: I have been the lead singer in Ragús, Titanic Dance and also one of the leads in Celtic Nights. With these groups, I toured the length and breadth of USA, Holland, Belgium, Germany, China and Japan. All of these shows are a mixture of Irish dance, song and music and we had an absolutely brilliant time with a lot of overlap in the line-up between the productions. So we became more like a family than simply colleagues, and boy, did we raise the roof in those theatres!
Natasha Barbieri: You’ve developed quite a following/repertoire in South America. What are some of your favorite things about the language and places you have visited?
Rebecca Winckworth: I began my South American adventures in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and from the moment I landed, I fell in love with the culture and the people. It is a city that feels alive! Alive with music, excitement, great food, kindness, and fun, and I cried like a baby when I had to leave for an onward journey to Chile. I hope to return one day as it is truly magical.
Aside from that, I have to recommend the food in Lima, Peru- it is a food capital of the world and even the street food is mind-blowingly delicious! Mexico too, is a must-visit for any food-lovers, and a hugely diverse country to travel around. Though in general, my heart is here in Colombia, Medellín, which is a city that will surprise you when you come to visit. It is peaceful, brimming with nature, and music is a part of their way of life here. Imagine everything from salsa, to Opera, to reggaeton, to tango, and more…. it’s really one of the most musically diverse places I have ever known.
In terms of the Spanish language, well…. I love it! I prefer it to English as there are verb tenses that don’t even in exist in English and allow us a lot more flexibility in terms of describing the probability and reality of something. I also love the rolling “r” sound which I learnt in my singing warm ups, and now get to use in everyday speaking- it’s a really fun and dramatic sound to make!
Natasha Barbieri: You were in Colombia during the lockdown and started sharing music from your balcony which went viral on social media. What made you start and what are some of your favorite memories?
Rebecca Winckworth: The first night I went out to sing is an experience that I still cannot explain. In my ordinary life, I would never dare sing in public like that, but a feeling inside of me, just told me to sing and of course, from there it became a nightly song for 2 months with my neighbours contacting me on social media and even writing letters and sending them to me, since we were not allowed to leave our buildings to meet in person.
A lovely moment was when a little girl from across the road sent me a handwritten letter and a facemask as a gift saying that it was the favourite moment of her day and from there, she began to simply call out my name and wave from her balcony every now and then during the day – a sweet little one around 8 years old but of course, I would not recognise her as her building is far away!
Another wonderful moment was when someone reached out on Instagram to say that they lived in another city, however their parents were my neighbours, and they would have a nightly family Whatsapp call to share the performance together. He said it was so fun and they loved guessing what song I was going to sing. It became a “family thing”!
Natasha Barbieri: You’ve combined folk and jazz in your most recent EP “Together at El Alto.” Please share some about your team and the selections chosen.
Rebecca Winckworth: That was so much fun! A lot of that was improvised on the day and so you might see the body movements between us as we were quite literally reading cues from each other. The wonderful group who joined me “Familia Solé” are all from Medellín – mostly jazz performance students and we came up with the song choices whilst trying to find repertoire we would have in common. The arrangement was created by literally jamming together!
Sam Farley on piano and David Cantoni on saxophone for Gracias a la Vida and Alfonsina y el Mar…. well, they are pure geniuses! Sam is from the US living and teaching Jazz at EAFIT University in Medellín and David is Argentinian living in Mexico. David happened to fly into Medellín for vacation the night before and came along as a friend of Sam’s for fun so we just improvised with him over what Sam and I had roughly arranged. Gracias a la Vida is a song I heard in Chile written by Violeta Parra and in English it means “Thank you for life”. This was the last song she wrote before taking her own life by suicide. It is like an anthem for me now – an anthem to life. Alfonsina is a song that I learnt in Argentina and again, I find the words incredibly poignant and the melody so interesting. It’s sadly about a lady who takes her life by walking into the sea and not returning.
Natasha Barbieri: You’ve had a Christmas tour for some time back in Ireland but this year obviously everything changed. So instead, you provided a stage for performers from around the world with “Citizens of Song.” Walk us through the timeline of putting that together and some of the lessons (and challenges) that come with a virtual concert series like this.
Rebecca Winckworth: This was just a pure moment of naivety and the universe bringing me an idea without any kind of planning! Looking back on it now, I cannot believe what we achieved without any experience whatsoever in online productions! I just felt sad seeing what was happening to the industry and thought that putting on an inspiring musical concert would bring some hope and joy. I really had NO idea how much work that was going to take to turn around in two weeks. I was honestly sick in bed for a week after the show as I didn’t sleep or eat from the moment I decided to pull it off! Since then, I have learnt more about how to make the productions run more smoothly, but it still takes a gigantic amount of time and energy! On the tech side of things, I do have a great team here in Medellín for graphic design, animation, sound engineering and video editing, and so that really helps as those are things that I simply could not do alone.
The lessons I have learnt is that anything we put our minds to, we can achieve. There is no point in panicking, it’s simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and working, working, working. I have had streaming disasters, or the courier with the concert hard drive going missing during a thunderstorm, our animator nearly being killed by a landslide the night before the concert and so much more, but you just have to find a solution to the problems as they arise, and then plan for them the next time in advance. Well, I certainly will not let my animator nor streaming guy go driving their motorbikes during extreme weather again, mind you!
I have also learnt that we are so much more alike than we would normally believe. This pandemic has broken down borders in terms of geography, religion, spoken language and allowed artists from all walks of life to “share the stage” as equals. From Argentina to Mexico, Colombia to Australia, Europe to the States, we are putting together line-ups that could never happen on a physical stage, as it would simply be far too expensive. From the Colombian peace choir made up of ex-FARC members reintegrating into civilian life, to the stars of Broadway and everything in between, it’s truly inspiring to see us come together and share in our shared language of music.
Natasha Barbieri: 2020 has made it clearer than ever the power of music and as we hopefully look for a brighter 2021 what are some of the projects you are looking to share with your audiences?
Rebecca Winckworth: I am in the middle of putting together another huge Citizens of Song production for St. Patrick’s Day which will be streamed online on March 20th at 8pm Irish time or 3pm NYC time featuring spectacular Irish dancers, musicians, singers, orchestras, choirs, dancers and more! After that, we will produce a full festival of music from Medellín in April! And then after that, you can be sure there will be many more concerts in new musical destinations. The trick is to simply not stop, because when I stop and take stock of what we are creating, I realise how exhausting it is! But if we just keep going, we keep creating, and that creating is inspiring and bringing people together from all around the world when we need it most…so we simply can’t stop!
Please connect with us on social media @citizensofsong or hello@citizensofsong.org
You can also subscribe to Citizens of Song on YouTube
Learn more about Rebecca:
Facebook @ RebeccaWinckworthMusic
