Show Notes
Lodestar is a new podcast hosted by two sisters: composer Finola Merivale and writer and artist Tamzin Merivale. In Lodestar, we explore our relationship with our creativity. We will be inviting writers, artists, musicians and more to dive into the highs and lows, the successes and failures and everything in between. Thank you so much for tuning in; we hope you will come along as we embark on this journey of creative discovery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Lodestar with Tamzin and Finola
Firstly, apologies to listeneres for this very late release! In this final episode of Season 1, Tamzin and Finola dig into a thought-provoking Creativity Challenge set by poet Jason Allen-Paisant. Jason asked us to take some moments in silence and contemplate where our creative work sits in relation to the circle we are part of, including our ancestors and descendants.
Jason Allen-Paisant is a Jamaican scholar, poet and writer. His work explores how Afro-diasporic artists and communities shape their futures through embodied philosophies, focusing on the intersections of poetry and philosophy. His second book of poems, Self-Portrait as Othello won two of the most prestigious poetry prizes in the world: both the Forward Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize – a rare feat. His debut collection, Thinking with Trees won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry and was named a Book of the Year by The Irish Times. His stunning memoir The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican Memoir of Plants and Dreams was published last year, to critical acclaim. Jason is also Professor of Critical Theory and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.
In this Creativity Challenge episode, Tamzin and Finola discuss whether or not they embraced the idea of "boredom." In the last episode, GRAMMY-nominated composer Emma O'Halloran pulled a card from the Oblique Strategies card deck – a deck full of creative prompts designed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. The card that came up for our challenge was "Do Something Boring."
Irish composer Emma O'Halloran was fresh off the plane from the GRAMMYs when we sat down with her to discuss her nomination for Best Opera Recording. She is the first woman composer from Ireland to be nominated for a GRAMMY in the classical field. Her two operas – Trade and Mary Motorhead – received international critical acclaim. They were called “remarkable,” by the Irish Independent, and the LA Times wrote that, “No Irish Opera has entered the standard repertory, but that is about to change.”
In this next Creativity Challenge episode, Tamzin and Finola sit down to discuss the task set for them by award-winning film-maker Payal Kapadia, called "Correspondence." For the challenge, the sisters created video letters for each other. Finola wrote her video letter from snowy Sweden and Tamzin made hers in Morocco. Tune in to hear about the process of creating these videos.