New Songs From The Dragon Café

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Celebrating the completion of our recording at 9M Studios

Recording our songs at the fantastic 9M Studios in Southwark

Recording our songs at the fantastic 9M Studios in Southwark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In July we released ‘In This Circle Is My Heart’, a new album of 12 songs by The Dragon Café Singers. We are incredibly proud of these original songs which we have written collaboratively between 2016 and 2025. The album can be accessed via the link below, where you can listen on your chosen platform. I am the singing leader of The Dragon Café. This creative, community space offers free wellbeing and arts activities for people to connect, relax, and explore creative expression. It is a project of the charity Mental Fight Club which is based in the borough of Southwark, South London.  Activities are free and open to all, you can find out what’s on via this link – https://www.mentalfightclub.art/whats-on

 

We are performing The Ballad of The Dragon Café as part of a concert in The Bloomsbury Festival at 7:30pm on Thursday 16th October at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL. Click the link below for more information!

 

https://bloomsburyfestival.org.uk/events/songs-and-ballads/

 

https://www.youtube.com/@VivienEllisSinger

 

Helen McDonald recording her vocals for Roots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roots

Roots, what do they carry?
Roots, how do they grow?
Roots can tell our story;
How deep do they go?

We wrote this song for ‘Concert For Winter’ at The Globe Theatre, December 2019. This was a
wonderful celebration of the communities of Southwark, taking place annually on the main stage
of The Globe up to 2019. That year the theme was ‘roots’. We thought about where our roots
are, where we feel ‘rooted’ and where we belong. Daniel O’Byrne, a wonderful song-maker and
patron of the Dragon Cafe, helped to shape the song. Helen McDonald (Future Groove) is our
fabulous soloist.

Here and Now

Here and now we love to sing,
Here and now the time to bring,
All our joy and all our sadness,
Sing our hope and sing our gladness

We wrote this Latin-inspired song in 2022 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Dragon Cafe.
It is inspired by our fantastic dance leaders Ariella and Renzo, who created the dance that
accompanies it.

Southwark Rebel Women

We’re Southwark Rebel Women,
Women on a mission,
To change the world we live in
Here and now.

This song was written and recorded virtually during Covid 19 lockdowns in 2021. It celebrates
six amazing women who lived and worked in Southwark, and made a difference. They are: Mary
Wollstonecraft, eighteenth century advocate of women’s rights; Octavia Hill, social reformer and
co-founder of the National Trust; Ada Salter, social reformer and first woman mayor in London;
Evelyn Sharp, key figure in the suffrage movement, pioneering journalist, and writer of ‘Rebel
Women’, a book suffragettes profiles; Una Marson, Jamaican feminist, activist, writer, and first
Black woman producer and presenter on BBC radio during WW2; Sarah Wheeler, mental health
rights activist and founder of the Mental Fight Club charity and The Dragon Cafe.
The soloists are Clemmie Franks and Victoria Couper (voice trio), Sally Davies (choir director,
composer, performer), Vivien Ellis, Gina Foster (Swing Out Sister). Dragon Cafe patron Caroline
Moore sings the tribute to unrecorded voices.

Ballad of The Dragon Café

Oh, oh, Dragon Café,
Bring all that’s in your soul;
Oh, oh, Dragon Café,
How we love you so

Part of a trilogy of songs to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Dragon Cafe, we wrote this in
2024. It’s inspired by the traditional narrative ballad form, especially a ballad called ‘Little
Musgrove’, and tells the history of the Dragon Cafe. We got inspired and wrote a total of 100
verses, which we distilled into this song. Cafe patrons Sionie and Daniel helped with the writing.

Drive the Cold Winter Away

When sun is low down
In cold London Town
Well into the season of flu
If life is a chore,
The love from cook’s store
Is a feast made for me and for you
There’s hot veggie food
To lighten your mood
All day at the Dragon Cafe
So sit and be still
When you’ve had your fill
To drive the cold winter away, away
To drive the cold winter away, away
To drive the cold winter away

Fans of early music may recognise the tune, which is adapted from an English Christmas Carol
of Elizabethan origin, called All Hail To The Days, also known as Drive The Cold Winter Away.
We wrote this for The Globe Concert for Winter in 2017.

Music to Hear (Shakespeare’s Sonnet 8)

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

In September 2018 we were invited by The Globe Theatre to take part in Sonnet Sunday, a
performance of all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets in one day. We created a musical setting for Sonnet 8,
which is full of musical imagery.

When Icicles Hang By The Wall (Shakespeare)

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall
And milk comes frozen home in pail.

When flights are booked to somewhere hot
And homeless Ness is sleeping rough,
And shop online, last-minute dot.
And foodbank gifts may be enough.

This was written and performed for Concert for Winter at The Globe in 2016. The lyrics are from
a song quoted in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost, describing winter in the seventeenth
century, in the days when winters were so cold that the Thames froze over. We extend the idea
to describe the challenges we experience during London winters in the 21st century.

Finding Our Way

We’re finding our way now
With each step finding our way
We’re walking together
Finding our way, finding our way
Finding our way, finding our way

This is the first song where we wrote the lyrics and music collaboratively, with cafe patron Daniel
O’Byrne. We performed it in 2016 at The Globe Theatre Concert for Winter. We were interested
in the stories that resonate deeply with us, and focussed on “Alice in Wonderland’ and
‘Cinderella’.

These Things

We got together, a crowd of us,
We caught a moment in time,
We heard each other, We spoke our truth,
We shared some treasure from our lives.

A song celebrating the things that are important to us,

Birds of a Feather (not the Billie Eilish one!)

So in all our transactions let this be the plan
For the wealth of each other as well as we can,
Do your duty, love mercy,
We’ll unite together,
And we’ll travel thro’ life
like the birds of a feather.

The words for this song are adapted from a broadside ballad printed in Union Street Borough in
the 1800’s. We wrote the tune.

Friendship Celebration

You are my all-weather friend
You help me be brave
You were there when my cancer took hold
I didn’t expect all you gave me
For this is our friendship celebration
Friendship celebration, friendship celebration
All is well
All will be well
All will be well right now

It’s in the title. And we’re taking words of wisdom from Julian of Norwich, whose writings are the
earliest surviving English language works by a woman.

At The Dragon Cafe

Written and performed by Daniel O’Byrne.

 

 

 

 

MA by Research in Music | Bloomsbury Festival | Songs & Ballads of St Giles

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In January 2024 I began an MA by research in Music at the University of York, part-time over two years. During this time I started working with the Bloomsbury Festival as a music director, researcher and community musician on a project entitled ‘Strange Doings in London – the songs and ballads of St Giles’, culminating in October 2024. This work will be the core of my MA.

Read more

Street cries for ‘Van Gogh in Brixton’, ‘Between The Ears’, BBC Radio 3

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I researched and recorded street cries for ‘Vincent Van Gogh in Brixton’, a BBC Radio 3 feature for
‘Between The Ears’, scheduled for broadcast at 7.15pm on Sunday 12 January, and then available to
listen again on BBC Sounds. The producer is Victoria Ferran.
You can listen to the programme here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0026nmh

The programme recreates the sounds 20-year-old Van Gogh might have heard in 1873 and 1874,
walking between his digs in South London and his job at an art dealer’s in Covent Garden.

Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhône, 1888. Photograph: Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais

‘A Starry Night for a Ramble’ aka ‘Kiss and Never Tell’ is a popular music-hall song Van Gogh might
have heard while he was in London in the early 1870’s. I recorded this on my phone.

 

I found street cries collected as near as possible to locations he may have known, including those of
baked potato sellers. Hot potato vendors were a common sight on the streets of Victorian London,
with their small mental boxes on four legs fuelled by charcoal. Like many Londoners on a cold night,
Van Gogh might have bought a hot potato to eat, or warm his hands. Gustave Doré made an image
of a baked potato seller in ‘London: a Pilgrimage’ by Blanchard Jerrold and Gustave Doré, 1872.
Doré’s illustrations of London life were a major inspiration for Van Gogh.

 

 

C: Victoria Ferran, 2025

Bartholomew Fair 1808

The Clerkenwell Ballad Walk for Baroque At The Edge Festival

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This is a short film trailer of The Clerkenwell Ballad Walk for Baroque At The Edge Festival, January 2021:

This trailer was used to advertise a podcast of The Clerkenwell Ballad Walk (which I did for) Baroque at the Edge Festival, which was online in January 2021.

In this short film, I am walking up Cowcross Street in London, which runs east-west, from St John Street in the east, to Farringdon Road in the west. Farringdon Tube Station is behind me, as I walk towards old Smithfield Market. I am singing a street ballad about Bartholomew Fair, dating from the early 1800’s. This important fair took place every year from 1133 until 1855, when it was suppressed by the authorities for encouraging debauchery and public disorder. I end my walk at the priory church of St Bartholomew The Great. the oldest parish church in the City of London.


Bartholomew Fair 1808: Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832) (after) John Bluck (fl. 1791–1819), Joseph Constantine Stadler (fl. 1780–1812), Thomas Sutherland (1785–1838), J. Hill, and Harraden (aquatint engravers)

I made a podcast for Baroque At The Edge Festival 2021. You can listen here

It’s a musical guided walk around the streets and open spaces of LSO St Luke’s, the festival venue. I am joined by Fiona Talkington, and London Blue Badge tourist guide Dafydd Wyn Philips. I found ballads from the C17th to the C19th revealing the history of Clerkenwell, telling stories about remarkable events, and exploring themes of poverty, drink, crime & punishment, and the work of Charles Dickens and William Morris.

I thoroughly enjoyed researching and arranging these songs. I found some of them in them in Ballads Online, and some in the English Broadside Ballad Archive. I did a bit of detective work to provide tunes for some of them.

You can read an interview I did with Festival director Lindsay Kemp here

Dafydd and are planning another ballad walk, a virtual guided tour through the City of London, on Wednesday 26th January 2022, for Dragon Cafe In the City which runs as a fortnightly programme of events for those who wish to release the pressure, break the stress cycle, and build resilience, free and open to all. Check their website for joining details.

Beverley Early Music Festival: Alva Online!

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Our forthcoming concert “Angels in The Architecture’ for Beverley Early Music Festival, Saturday 29th May 2021 will be filmed and available to watch online here:

https://www.ncem.co.uk/events/alva-online/

Premiere: Sunday 6 June 3.30pm, on sale until: Friday 25 June 5.00pm, view on demand until: Friday 2 July 5.00pm. Tickets £10

Image origin: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SaintJohnofBeverley.png.

Link to Soundcloud recording: https://soundcloud.com/vivienellis/gaude-mater-ecclesia_st-john-of-beverley-chant

Welcome to the second song in our series ‘Angels in the Architecture’ for The Beverley Early Music Festival, celebrating St Mary’s Church, Beverley and its curious carvings.

For this project Alva have teamed up with medieval harpist, singer and musicologist Leah Stuttard, and Dr Jennie England, St Mary’s Heritage Learning Officer.

St John of Beverley, founding father of the town, features in several carvings and roof bosses at St Mary’s. In 2021 Beverley celebrates the 1,300th anniversary of the Saint’s death (May 721). A good time to sing Gaude Mater Ecclesia (Rejoice Mother Church), a C15th chant for the feast day of St John of Beverley (9 May), transcribed, edited and translated by Leah Stuttard. This is the first performance in modern times.

The chant tells of the saint’s miracles, but the fact that this fragile piece of music has survived at all is a kind of miracle. It was written down in the middle of the fifteenth century, in a chant book known as The York Gradual, from the parish church of East Drayton, Nottinghamshire, in the archdiocese of York. A century later, King Henry VIII dissolved over 800 monasteries, and many precious libraries were destroyed. The new owners of these former religious houses saw no value in old manuscripts, except as raw material for scouring candlesticks, cleaning their boots, or even as loo paper!:

‘A great nombre of them whych purchased those supertycyous mansyons, resrved of those lybrarye bokes, some to serve theyr jakes [toilets], some to scoure candelstyckes, and some to rubbe their bootes. Some they solde to the grossers and soapsellers…’ – John Bale, 1549

Leah has written a fascinating blog post about our chant here

and you can have a close look at the York Gradual here.

We think this chant is likely to have been sung by men. We know it was sung each year on the saint day of St John of Beverley.

Image origin: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manuscript_Illumination_with_Singing_Monks_in_an_Initial_D,_from_a_Psalter_MET_sf12-56-4s1.jpg

Here Dr Jennie England introduces the Heritage Lottery funded project to preserve more than 600 remarkable medieval roof bosses at St Mary’s.

St John features in at least two of the bosses, together with Æthelstan, one of the first kings to adopt John as his special saint, a theme explored here by Jennie. After Aethelstan, many kings visited John’s shrine, including King Henry V in 1421. He attributed victory at Agincourt to St John, and made him one of the patron saints of the royal family.

We know that St John was especially venerated in the North of England. He is often associated with the victory of British kings in battle, but less well-known is that St John is the earliest recorded teacher of a deaf person. His student, the Venerable Bede, tells us that John taught a deaf-mute boy from Hexham to read and speak, and is the patron saint of teachers of the deaf. More stories of John’s life, works and legacy can be found here.

Little Mousgrove and The Lady Barnet

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The Carnival Band

Between 2014 and 2018 I was privileged to take part in a project with The Carnival Band, to record 100 of the most popular ballads of the C17th for a project led by Dr Chris Marsh of Queen’s University Belfast.

The Carnival Band are releasing some of these recordings in ‘A New Bag of Old Ballads’, and I sing the third in the series, ‘Little Mousegrove & The Lady Barnet’ (AKA ‘Little Musgrave’ or ‘Matty Groves’). The song tells of an adulterous & passionate tryst between a young man and a noblewoman, ending in betrayal and murder. Andy Watts from the Carnival Band introduces the project here.

‘A lamentable ballad of the little Musgrove’ . A seventeenth century broadside held in the Bodleian Library

Check the bag to hear ‘The Delights of the Bottle’, sung by Giles Lewin, and ‘I’ll Never Love Thee More’, sung by Jub Davis, and keep visiting for more treasures.

If you’re interested in finding out more about these ballads, watch ‘The Woman to the Plow and the Man to the Hen-Roost’: Wives, Husbands, & Best-Selling Ballads in Seventeenth-Century England, a lecture given by Dr Chris Marsh to the Royal Historical Society in 2018, with illustrations sung by me.

Angels in the Architecture – a concert for St Mary’s, Beverley

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Part of Beverley Early Music Festival 2020, postponed until 2021 – shared online, one song at a time!

With my friend and colleague Giles Lewin of Alva, & joined by wonderful medieval harpist & blogger Leah Stuttard, we have created Angels in the Architecture, a concert for St Mary’s in Beverley, thought to be one of the finest parish churches in England, and currently undergoing restoration. We were looking forward to performing at the Beverley Early Music Festival on Saturday 30 May 2020, but this is now postponed until 2021, like all live music events in the current crisis. In the meantime, we’ve decided to share some of the songs online, in a series of blog posts and recordings. Our songs feature angels and devils, dragons and other mythical beasts, famous people with local connections such as St John of Beverley and King Athelstan, and dramatic retellings of bible stories  – all inspired by the heritage of St Mary’s, and its unique collection of misericords, carvings, and over 600 carved roof bosses. This short video trailer for Angels in the Architecture showcases the musicians of Alva, and some of our site-specific performance and education work in other venues such as the V&A, The Geffrye Museum and The Globe, as well as evoking the special atmosphere of St Mary’s, with its exquisite bosses and sculptures

We have enjoyed collaborating with Dr Jennie England, Heritage Learning Officer of St Mary’s, who has helped us to understand more about this unique building, and we’re so thankful for her contributions to enrich these posts. In the first of a series of video podcasts, with some stunning aerial footage of the church and Beverley, she tells the story of the dramatic fall of St Mary’s tower in 1520, the tragic consequences, and subsequent remarkable rebuilding.

Jennie introduces her work as a heritage officer, and provides an insight into the cultural heritage of St Mary’s and its unique roof bosses.

Our first song is Sir Eglamore & The Dragon, a broadside balled printed in 1672.  You can see a copy here at the wonderful online resource of the English Broadside Ballad Archive, University of Santa Barbara:

Here is our version, sung and played on fiddle by Giles, and featuring Leah’s sonorous bray-harp:

Sir Eglamore & The Dragon

Courage Crowned with Conquest; OR, A brief relation, how that Valiant Knight, and Heroick Champion Sir Eglamore, bravely fought with, and manfully slew, a terrible, huge great Monstrous Dragon

To a Pleasant new Tune
Sir Eglamore that valiant knight,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
He fetched his sword and he went to fight,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
As he went over hill and dale,
All clothed in his coat of mail
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

A huge great dragon leapt out of his den,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
Which had killed the Lord knows how many men,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
But when he saw Sir Eglamore,
Good lack had you seen see how this dragon did roar,
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

This dragon, he had a plaguy hide,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
That could both sword and steel abide,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
He could not enter with hacks and cuts
Which vexed the knight to the very hearts blood and guts,
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

All the trees in the wood did shake,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
Stars did tremble and men did quake,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
But had you seen how the birds lay peeping,
‘Twould have made a man’s heart to fall  a-weeping,
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

But it was too late to fear,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
For now it was come to fight dog, fight bare,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
And as a yawning he did fall,
he thrust his sword in hilt and all
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

But now as the knight in choler did burn
Fa la lanky down dilly,
He owed the dragon a shrewd good turn,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
In at his mouth his sword he bent,
The hilt appeared at his fundament,
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

The sword that was a right good blade,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
As ever Turk or Spaniard made
Fa la lanky down dilly,
I for my part do forsake it
And he that will fetch it, let him take it,
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

When all this was done, to the ale-house he went
Fa la lanky down dilly,
And by and by his two pence he spent,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
For he was so hot with tugging with the dragon,
That nothing would quench him but a whole flaggon.
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

Now God preserve our King and Queen,
Fa la lanky down dilly,
And eke in London may be seen.
Fa la lanky down dilly,
As many knights, and as many more
And all so good as Sir Eglamore.
Fa la la la, la la la, lanky down dilly.

Millions of such ballads were printed cheaply on one side of paper, with a picture or two, tune-name and lyrics, and hawked on the streets for a penny by ballad sellers. The catchy chorus of our ballad in the middle and end of verses, makes this ideal for communal singing, perhaps over a flagon or two. We are intrigued by the reference to swords, and wonder about the significance of this. According to wiki, they became something of a fashion accessory for the well-dressed gentleman during the C17th and C18th centuries, after which canes, and then eventually umbrellas, became a Victorian gentleman’s wardrobe essential.

Watch this space for more songs, recorded remotely by the members of Alva, in France, Oxford and Chorleywood, all inspired by the architecture of the beautiful church of St Mary’s in Beverley, featuring angels, devils, wily foxes, pilgrim rabbits and the blessed St John of Beverley!

Welcome to my blog!

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Welcome to my blog! This is my first entry – thanks for visiting!

I’m a community choir leader and singer specialising in early music. I research the history of songs, and the role of the arts in health and wellbeing.  I make performances which engage & include audiences and link to closely to communities, places & history. In this blog I have loads I’d love to share: thoughts and discoveries about songs, singing and the arts, and aspects of my work. I’m planning to share something every week.

This first post is about a choir I lead called The Dragon Café Singers, and our most recent performance on December 5th 2019 in Concert for Winter, at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. CFW is the Globe’s free annual showcase and celebration of the past, present and future of Southwark. This is us on stage in December, with amazing tuba player Oren Marshall, & instrumentalists from The Globe.

The theme of the concert was Roots. We wrote a new song, and we’re recording it soon.

We’ve performed annually in CFW since 2014, and this has inspired us to write original songs, which form most of our repertoire. Last year we recorded a CD of our music.

This is the first track ‘Drive the Cold Winter Away’, written for Concert for Winter in 2017. We’ve used the melody of a sixteenth century English ballad, with new words about love, food and community, and a samba rhythm. https://soundcloud.com/vivien-keiles/drive-the-cold-winter-away

The Dragon Café is a place of wellbeing which pops up every Monday from 12 midday in the Crypt of St George the Martyr Church, opposite Borough Tube Station. Activities are free and open to all. Fresh low-cost vegetarian food is cooked on site, with produce from nearby Borough Market. I lead a drop-in singing group at 1pm every week, which I’ve done every Monday since January 2013. The Dragon Café Singers songwriting and performing group meets on Mondays at 3pm. Everyone is welcome to both groups!

In this video, Jacqui, a member of our singing group, shares her story. Jacqui has several long-term conditions, including Parkinson’s. Jacqui became a patron of The Dragon Café in 2016, on the advice of her GP, and comes nearly every week. She enjoys singing, dancing, visual art and many other activities. In the video, Jacqui explains how singing has brought her speech back. https://vimeo.com/283913323/2f718c6952

My work at the cafe is at the heart of the new Arts for Health training I have designed for General Practitioners. The experience and co-production of people who use services is central to this training.

The cafe was founded by Sarah Wheeler, a visionary arts activist, who lived locally, and was a long-time user of mental health services. She envisioned a creative cafe in the crypt of St George’s, a place to ‘create, relate. integrate’. Sarah passed away in 2016, but her legacy lives on in Mental Fight Club, the charity she founded, the aim of which is:

“The promotion of social inclusion amongst people who are socially excluded from society or parts thereof as a result of mental ill-health, through the provision of creative events which foster social connection and allow for the exploration of mental illness, recovery and well-being for all”.

This is an image of our first performance at The Globe in December 2014, with Sarah Wheeler standing on the right, in a black beanie. This first post is dedicated to Sarah, Mental Fight Club, and all who help to make The Dragon Café a creative place to be, for everyone. With gratitude.