released November 4, 2022

Musicians:

Brian Dunning: Flutes, whistles, uilleann pipes, accordion, bodhran, pan pipes & voice
Jeff Johnson: Keys, percussion & voice

John Fitzpatrick: Violin (1, 6, 9, 10, 14, 16, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27)
Wendy Goodwin: Violin (2, 4, 8, 19, 20, 31, 32)
Johnny Cunningham: Violin (7)
Tim Ellis: Guitars, tipel (3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29)
Phil Baker: Bass (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 29, 32)
Janet Marie Chvatal: Voice (4, 11, 13, 14, 16, 23, 24, 28, 31)
Rick Crittenden: Bass (5, 7, 11, 12, 15, 21, 25, 28, 30)
Greg Williams: Drums & percussion (9, 14, 16, 23, 24, 26, 27)
Roger Hadley: Percussion (5, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 25, 27, 28, 30)
Derri Daugherty: Guitar (5, 7, 12, 15, 17, 25, 30)
Brian Willis: Drums (7, 11, 21, 30)
Jozef Lüptak: Cello (10, 22, 23, 29)
Jami Sieber: Cello (13, 16, 27, 31)
Gwen Franz: Viola (13, 29)
Lynn Skinner: Voice (5, 12, 17, 30)
Sylvia Goener: Voice (15, 25)
Sandy Simpson: Guitar (12)
Eric Miller: Guitar (4, 32)
Roy Salmond: Guitar (32)
Jack Dunning: Voice of the Irish (9)
Barry McGovern: Voice of Bishop Cadoc (16)

Produced, engineered & mixed by Jeff Johnson
Mastered by Golden Mastering, Ventura, CA

℗ © 2022 Ark Records, Inc. / Sola Scriptura Songs
Additional copyright information listed on individual tracks.

"Old Pier at Craignish" by Kathy Hastings © 2022
Cover design by Court Patton


A reflection on Brian Dunning, who died on February 10, 2022
By John Diliberto – host of the nightly musical soundscape, Echoes
 
The opening track of this collection says a lot about Brian Dunning. His flute, echoing into ambient space, a free-form alap driven by the spirit, speaking that which can only be spoken with music.
 
Born in Dublin in December of 1952, Brian Dunning studied flute at the Royal Irish Academy of music before heading to the jazz machine of the Berklee College of Music in Boston.  He also studied with the man with the golden flute, James Galway.  Jazz was his passion and he played with British jazz pianist, Stan Tracey.
 
This seems like a long way from the music that he was renowned for playing.  But life sometimes sends you on a different path.  On his way to a jazz club he met fellow Irishman, guitarist, Micheál O’Domhnaill. He was already celebrated for his group, The Bothy Band, an Irish ensemble that was in the first wave of the 1970s Celtic renaissance. He was putting together a new group to create a more contemporary Celtic sound. 
 
That group was Nightnoise, an eclectic Celtic band with Michael O’Domhnaill and his sister and fellow Bothy Band member, singer and keyboardist Triona N’Domhnaill, American violinist Billy Oskay and Dunning. They recorded several acclaimed and influential albums for Windham Hill, helping to define a Celtic chamber music sound and spur the Celtic craze of the 1990s. The O’Domhnaill siblings brought tradition. Brian Dunning brought exploration. He was a jazz improviser at heart.  As he told me, adapting a phrase by Duke Ellington, "It don't mean a thing if you can't make it up as you go along." He didn't go to the Berklee School of Music for nothing.
 
Brian's  only problem with Nigtnoise, especially in the beginning, was that the music was too slow. He would get his jazz ya-ya's out more fully with his band, Puck Fair which included Micheál O’Domhnaill and Irish percussionist, Tommy Hayes. 
 
Brian made beautiful music with Nightnoise for over a decade, but the greatest body of his work lies in his collaborations with keyboardist and composer Jeff Johnson. I've rarely seen two musicians be in such perfect sync with each other. I think Jeff challenged Brian with new settings for his flute melodies and then Brian took it up a notch. They came together on their Songs from Albion trilogy, based on the novels of Stephen Lawhead. With the book's Irish orientation, it was Brian who brought the Celtic to the table. He always insisted he wasn't versed in Irish traditional music, it was clearly in his DNA and flowing through his veins and breath.  
 
Two things strike me about the Albion trilogy. One is how young Brian looked when I first met him, with a full head of perfectly coifed brown hair. My current memories of him are in his full head of perfectly coifed pure white hair. The other is how well this music holds up, despite some of it going back 30 years. Through all the recordings, Brian deploys his considerable skills, not only playing flute, but blowing melodies on the pan-pipes on "Nemeton," or alternating flute with tin whistle for "On Scatha's Island." The octopus of Uilleann pipes? No problem for Brian. He could also knock out a mean rhythm on the Irish bodhrán frame drum.
 
This duo matured dramatically over their three decades together as the imagery they employed took them to new worlds. Much of Johnson and Dunning's music is based in mythology and fantasy, whether it's the travels of St. Aidan on the album, Byzantium, the fantasy creatures of the Katurran Odyssey or the adventures on "the other side" of The Song of Albion where Celtic lords, warriors, mythic bards and demons traveled an ancient land.
 
Brian approached all this without a hint of pretension. He wasn't an artist who dressed in exotic clothes, spoke about all things mystical or cast any mystery about himself. He was a raconteur of the first degree, telling tales of parochial school and the numerous musicians and tours he was on.
 
But when it came to performing, Brian caressed a melody like a lover, even when it’s a Christian hymn like "Be Thou My Vision" where he opens with a flute solo scented of steamy sensuality. He was an extraordinary musician who breathed melody and the spirit out of every pore of his being. 

Hear the Echoes Podcast, "Brian Dunning Remembered" here:
echoes.org/2022/02/17/echoes-podcast-brian-dunning-remembered/


By Jeff Johnson –

Irish flutist, Brian Dunning and I began working together in 1989 when we were both living in Portland, Oregon. Brian was playing with the contemporary Celtic ensemble, Nightnoise and between touring and recording with the band, he initially played as a sideman on several albums I was producing for my record label, Ark Records / ArkMusic.
 
I was presented with an idea by a publisher to produce music tied into a new trilogy by American author, Stephen Lawhead.  “The Song of Albion” was a Celtic fantasy and it was a no brainer to ask Brian to join me on creating a soundtrack for the stories. So began a musical partnership that would last over thirty years. A collaboration which included many albums inspired by Lawhead’s evocative stories.
 
Brian and I were fortunate to be making music when we did. In the early 1990s, contemporary Celtic music was quite popular. While releasing our music on my private label, we often licensed our songs to larger labels releasing compilations in the Celtic genre, including Windham Hill and Hearts of Space.
 
In 1996, Brian and his family moved back to Ireland and shortly after that I moved my family to Camano Island, Washington. The internet was still developing so Brian and I would send musical ideas back and forth via post and then schedule the occasional trip to record together. Even though we lived so far apart, our musical collaboration continued to thrive.
 
In 2000, we were approached to make an instrumental album of the favorite hymns of Ruth Bell Graham (Mrs. Billy Graham). We were also asked to perform the music at a gala event in North Carolina celebrating Mrs. Graham’s eightieth birthday. That ensemble was comprised of Brian and myself joined by Belfast violinist, John Fitzpatrick and Portland guitarist, Tim Ellis. The event spawned more performances, as well as our first Celtic Christmas release, “A Quiet Knowing Christmas.”
 
Brian and I continued to record and perform new music throughout the next decade. We were fortunate to have our music featured regularly on nationally syndicated shows like John Diliberto’s “Echoes” and Stephen Hill’s “Hearts of Space.” In 2002, our song “Vows” was featured in the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese’s international blockbuster, “Gangs of New York.” And for many years, we toured “A Celtic Christmas,” playing in beautiful venues in front of enthusiastic listeners. In addition to John Fitzpatrick and Tim Ellis, other wonderful musicians joined us over the years on these tours including Slovakian cellist, Jozef Lüptak and Seattle violist, Gwen Franz. In 2008, Wendy Goodwin, a Portland violinist, joined the trio. The three of us would record and tour frequently over the next ten years. The live tracks included on “Winter Songs” are from concerts we performed together in 2010 and 2013.
 
In 2011, the trio was joined by American soprano, Janet Marie Chvatal and German baritone, Marc Gremm to form the Coram Deo Ensemble. One of the many wonderful venues where we performed was the fairytale castle, Neuschwanstein, in Füssen, Germany. It was here in 2010, in the great “Throne Room,” that Brian recorded the opening flute improvisation for the new song, “Coming, Going.”
 
The Celtic trio’s last concert was on December 17, 2017. Coram Deo’s last concert was the following year on December 16, 2018. Little did I know these would be the last concerts I’d have with Brian. We would record together in 2019, but decided not to do a Christmas tour that year, opting to wait until the coming year. The COVID-19 pandemic kept that from happening.
 
We enjoyed a great visit with one another in the Fall of 2021 at his home in Clane, Ireland. We were finalizing plans to tour again in the coming Spring when Brian died unexpectedly on February 10, 2022.
 
Two days after Brian’s passing, I left on a scheduled trip to Türkiye with a good friend who lives there part time. Early in the trip, the Covid virus caught up with me and I sequestered myself in my friend’s home while recovering. It was there that I watched Brian’s funeral via live internet stream. Many miles from Ireland that day, I joined Brian’s family and other close friends in grieving his untimely death at seventy years old.
 
Yet, when listening to his haunting improvisation that opens “Coming, Going,” one can hear Brian move and breathe in between musical phrases. It is a profound reminder that Brian remains very much present in the music he left behind.
 
Violinist, John Fitzpatrick shared a story with me of a time in his youth when he had to return home from a place on the west coast of Northern Ireland which he dearly loved to visit. There was an old fisherman who empathized with John’s longing to not leave. Yet he told him, “John, if there was no leaving, there’d be no coming.”
 
John, along with all of the others mentioned above contributed so much to the music Brian and I made over the years. Equally important were the contributions by drummers Brian Willis and Gregg Williams; percussionists Roger Hadley and Mike Snyder; bass players Rick Crittenden and Phil Baker; cellist Jami Sieber; violinists Johnny Cunningham and Máire Breatnach; guitarists Derri Daugherty and Sandy Simpson, vocalists Lynn Skinner and Sylvia Groener; actor, Barry McGovern and Brian’s son, Jack. This music is dedicated to all of these wonderful artists to whom I will forever be grateful.
 
Finally, a special thanks to dear friend, Kathy Hastings for her art featured on “Coming, Going.” Kathy and her late husband, David, along with designer, Court Patton, created the covers of nearly all of our recordings over the years. And to Brian’s wife, Fiona, who’s painting adorns “Winter Songs,” along with Brian’s dear sons, Gordy, Jack and Jules. And lastly, to my Susie, who has always been by my side these many years of the ‘coming and going’ of Brian’s and my friendship and musical collaboration.
 
Jeff Johnson
August 2022