Maggie Sansone's 
Celtic Celebration Concert


Pictured above left to right : Paul Oorts, Paddy League,
Andrea Hoag and Maggie with Laura Quesnel in front.
This group performed in the Great Hall Concert Series
at St. John's College, Annapolis, MD.

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INTERVIEW OF MAGGIE SANSONE, owner and CEO of Maggie’s Music. Written by Connie McKenna, Irish-American singer and guitarist in the Celtic band- Ceoltoiri who recorded on the Maggie's Music Label (Women of Ireland, MM218).

What was your home environment like when you were a child? I grew up in Miami, Florida and my house was a fun, creative place to be. Both my parents were in the arts. My dad was a professional cartoonist and my mom was a copywriter for a large deparment store. They were a strong influence - I majored in art in college and still love to draw like my dad, and whenever I do any marketing or advertising for my record label, I feel like I’m walking in my mother’s shoes. I heard a lot of music around the house -- Dad played jazz piano and would let me sit next to him on the piano bench and play the bass line when he played boogie woogie-style . I started piano lessons at 8. Our family had lots of friends who played music and would come over and we'd all sit around singing and playing folk and jazz music. I learned the tune Freight Train on my guitar from Josh White who was visitng friends of ours in Miami in the 60's. We also went to a variety of concerts and usually whoever I heard up on stage I wanted to do that too! When I heard the New York Pro Musica I fell in love with early music and started recorder lessons at 14 and joined the American Recorder Society. I heard a woodwind quintet perform at the Unitarian Church and loved the bassoon and took lessons on that which lead to my joining the high school orchestra and winning a Bassoon scholarship for the summer at the Easton Music School at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. In college, I majored in Fine Arts and continued with music studies on my own, auditing music theory and African music classes, and playing classical and folk guitar. .Of all the instruments you played, why did you choose the hammered dulcimer? It was in the mid-70's, I was living in Baltimore and was playing Irish music on mandolin and guitar in an Irish Band called Kids on the Mountain when I first heard the hammered dulcimer. It was on streets of Key West, Florida and I was completely mesmerized. I sat on the curb for a long time just listening to the sound. I was obsessed with finding one and learning how to play it . 
What was your first dulcimer? After a lot of research, I settled on a Sam Rizzetta dulcimer. I picked it up in West Virginia in a raging snow storm . 
What do you play now? I own several dulcimers that I use for different types of events. I have instruments made by Nick Blanton (Sheperdstown, West Virginia) and Sam Rizzetta (Inwood, West Virginia). I also own a Persian Santur and am studying that style of playing which stresses improvisation and uses very light hammers to create delicate ornamentation.  Once you had heard the instrument, how did you learn it? During the time, about six months before I got my first dulcimer, I was already "practicing for many months by practicing on a piece of paper with a note chartd drawn on it, and using chop sticks for my hammers. When I got my dulcimer, I was able to play the tune-"Solder's Joy" right off the bat. Sam gave me some pointers and I was on my way. There weren't many instruction books in those days, so I taught myself and learned alot from listening and jamming with other folk musicians .
Was it a long road from there to your recording A Traveler’s Dream? It's been a long and exciting road. From my first recording recorded live to two-track in a living room in Oakland, California Hammer Dulcimer & Guitar, to owning my own record company. It’s a thrill to still be out and about performing and recording. .
Where did the Scottish Christmas idea come from? I was overdue for a new Christmas album (previous albums are Sounds of the Season, Sounds of the Season, Ancient Noels) and also wanted to put together a new concert concept to perform at Christmas time at the National Geographic Society. Previous concerts there were with Ensemble Galilei featuring music from Sounds of the Season and Ancient Noels. Luckily that same year ( 1996), the movie Braveheart was released, and River Dance and in general- all things Celtic. Our most recent recording artist signed to our label was Bonnie Rideout, an international performing star on the fiddle and a 3- time Scottish Fiddle Champion. I talked to her about the concept of developing a holiday recording featuring her and Scottish music and include myself and Al Petteway. Bonnie would also be the music director and co-produce with Charlie Pilzer. As the project evolved, Bonnie brought to us the wonderful cover image. It was from an old postcard of a Scottish castle with a Christmas tree in front of it that she had saved for many years. She asked Eric Rigler to join our band. Eric was the piper who played all the bagpipe music on the Braveheart soundtrack. And we also added Abbie Newton on cello.
The Scottish Christmas tour is big touring act that originated out of your label. How did that happen? It was a real thrill for me to tour with Bonnie for the first three years. During that time Bonnie, Al and I were all featured on CBS-TV- Sunday Morning- and after that doors opened for our label. It happened like this...a hammered dulcimer student of mine was married to the owner of Mainstage Booking. So with a copy of our appearance on the CBS-TV Sunday Morning in hand, I went and pitched the show to him and he signed us on without an audition. It opened many doors for all of us. For the tour, we added dancers, more pipes & drums and had a show that appealed to larger audiences and also got booked into large halls from Tulsa Oklahoma to Oshkosh Wisconsin to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. This show became the fastest pre-show sell out on the circuit. After a few years, Al Petteway and I moved on to developour own shows and Bonnie continues with Scottish music, recording and touring and appears with some of the biggest names on the Scottish music scene today.
How did you get into the recording business? I was living in California at the time and performing all kinds of places including the fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco along with the other buskers. Often people asked if I had a recording. I got tired of saying “No,” so with a little help from my musician friends,I made my first album on a shoestring budget, recording direct to two-track in the engineers' living room. A month later I moved back East traveling in my canary yellow Dodge Dart across country and would stop into any record or new age gift shop on the way. I found I had a knack of self-promotion and selling my album. Then I began performing in the Washington D.C. area, anywhere and everywhere! It seemed to be a word of mouth, grass roots thing and my mailing list and fan base began to grow like that. It sold so well that I learned to listen closely to passersby! When they started asking for Christmas music, I made “Sounds of the Season.” At that point I had to decide whether to take a chance and pay for production of a risky new format called the compact disc. I took a chance and that recording received national acclaim and got some awards. 
Aren’t you known for chamber-folk sound which made you stand out from the pack? Yes, the sound is unique on our label . Because of my early classical and early music background, my recordings incorporated folk and early music instruments. You can hear that in my first Christmas album “Sounds of the Season” back in 1988. It was later dubbed: “chamber folk” and my label is considered a pioneer of that sound. Later, I wanted to appeal to the Windham Hill crowd- now called New Age- and added more lush instrumentation for my 1990 album “Mist and Stone.” It was everywhere- gift and new age stores, Nature Company and mail order catalogs. This album went on to become a big seller in the US- over 80,000 albums. I was attracting the attention of the press and radio and was lucky to get a feature story in Billboard Magazine. This helped get credibility with major record distributors - and I was on my way!
How do you choose the artists you sign to your label? The traditional music scene is strong in Washington D.C. area where I live and there are many music events and festivals where musicians come together both formally and informally. It’s a chance to get to know the musicians. Signing artists to a label is a little like getting married. It s a long term commitment and I like to use what I call the “trench method.” When you’re in the trenches with a musician - under the hot stage lights - you get to know them as artists and as people. All the artists on Maggie’s Music play together a lot which is probably why the label feels like a family. Celtic harper Sue Richards (the first person I signed in 1991) and multi-instrumentalist Robin Bullock, for example, are brilliant musicians and participated very generously to my first few albums so it seemed both right and smart to sign them to the label as solo artists. Sue brought her Celtic ensemble Ceoltoiri ("Kyul-tory" means "Musicians" in Irish Gaelic) with her. That included Connie McKenna singing in Irish Gaelic before it was a fad. Then we signed Karen Ashbrook, well known in the dulcimer community and because she was doing such magical things with Irish music on the dulcimer. I fell in love with Al Petteway’s guitar playing and signed him. Bonnie Rideout was another great discovery and a good friend. There was a blizzard while we were recording "Dance Upon The Shore,” and Bonnie lived near the recording studio, so she and her family put me on a couch for the duration of the snowed-in recording process. We signed the incredible early music group Hesperus made up of founders of the Folger Consort because they feel such a strong kinship between early music and traditional Scottish and Irish music, and we like the “crossover” feeling they bring to our label. We also signed the world champion City of Washington Pipe Band who are considered one of the best pipe bands in the world and most of the members live right here in Washington D.C .!
Why is Celtic music enjoying a Renaissance and what part is your label playing? Since my last interview with DPN (Vol.16, No.2, April-June, 1990), Celtic music was not as popular as it is today. I think that Celtic music speaks directly to the soul. It’s just so beautiful! The airs have a kind of mystical moodiness which speaks to the heart in this era of technological overload. And it has those dance rhythms – jigs and reels - that people respond to whether they dance or not. As for our label’s part - we feel good that we were one of a few labels in this country to record Celtic music and be nationally distributed through the independent network. Now there’s a great “Riverdance” rush and the major labels have leapt in with their licensed collections. Our challenge is to reach that bigger market of converts so that we can stay in the game, and keep our artistic values intact, too. What's up for the future for you?I am interested in the ancient traditions of the hammered dulcimer and have studied the Persian santur. I never stop being fascinated by musical instruments and recent additions are Bodhran, Scottish small-pipes and clarinet. I want to continue composing and as a performer,.I still manage to do 30 concerts a year. I continue to perform in concert with my own Celtic and Holiday themes. I still like to do the local folk festivals and in costume at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I have been working on a series of music books with Mel Bay Publications. .

 

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