Music of Bermuda
Encyclopedia
The music of Bermuda
is often treated as part of the Caribbean music
area. Its musical output includes pop singer Heather Nova
while Collie Buddz
have also gained international success with reggae hits in the US and the UK.
The island's musical traditions also include steelpan
, calypso
, choral music
, as well as an array of bagpipe music played by descendants of Irish and Scottish settlers; the biggest bagpipe band on modern Bermuda is the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band. Bermuda is also the home of one of the most popular Caribbean music groups in the United States, the Bermuda Strollers.
The islands are also home to gombey
dancers, reggae
, gospel music
, drum majorette bands, jazz
and other styles.
, Easter
, New Year's Day
, football and cricket
matches and other festivals and celebrations.
The word "Gombey" is related to the Bahamian "Goombay
", a similar dance tradition. It also refers to a specific drum of African origin (see List of Caribbean drums). In addition to the Bahamian Goombay tradition, Gombey is similar to some other Afro-Caribbean styles and celebrations (such as the Mummers). Afro-Caribbeans brought to Bermuda as slaves or convicts during colonial times introduced other Caribbean traditions.
-Read full Wiki on Gombey
.
The most famous Bermudan balladeer is Hubert Smith
, a popular local composer who performed for many visiting royalty and foreign heads of state. He is also the composer of "Bermuda Is Another World", an unofficial anthem for the island.
There were, until relatively recently, two major bagpipe bands in Bermuda, the Bermuda Cadets Pipe Band and the Bermuda Police Pipe Band. Both bands formed in 1955 and disbanded in 1992, the same year the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band was formed. Other historically important bagpipe bands include the Salvation Army Young People's Band, which dates back to the 1930s.
s; they organized as a group in 1942, and began touring the United States by the early 1950s.
Norman Luboff
followed in the footsteps of Jamaica
n-American
calypso
singer Harry Belafonte
in popularizing Trinidad
ian calypso. Luboff de-emphasized the saucy, ribald side of calypso and created a popular form that appealed to the masses. His signature song is "Yellow Bird" which became very popular in the 1960s.
, and was brought to Bermuda by a number of groups, including the Esso Steel Band, who moved to Bermuda in the 1950s. Esso became known for arranging Western classical music for the steelpan. In the 1960s, local choral traditions were merged with calypso and steelpan to create a distinctively Bermudian style.
. The Bermuda Philharmonic conductor
is Gary Burgess, a former opera singer. Bermuda has also produced notable classical musicians in Marcelle Clamens, an opera singer, mezzo-soprano
Jane Farge, pianists Peter Carpenter
and Karol Sue Reddington, and Joyce Mary Helen DeShield.
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
is often treated as part of the Caribbean music
Caribbean music
The music of the Caribbean is a diverse grouping of musical genres. They are each syntheses of African, European, Indian and native influences, largely created by descendants of African slaves...
area. Its musical output includes pop singer Heather Nova
Heather Nova
Heather Nova, is a Bermudian singer-songwriter and poet. She has released eight full-length albums and has found lasting success in Germany where two of her albums South and Storm have made their way into the Top-5 of German official album chart.-Biography:Heather Nova was born in Bermuda...
while Collie Buddz
Collie Buddz
Collie Buddz is a Bermudian reggae and dancehall artist best known for his single "Come Around". Although born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he was raised in Bermuda. He performed on Shaggy's 2007 album Intoxication on the track "Mad Mad World". In 2008, he performed the song "SOS" on WWE The Music,...
have also gained international success with reggae hits in the US and the UK.
The island's musical traditions also include steelpan
Steelpan
Steelpans is a musical instrument originating from The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago...
, calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
, choral music
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, as well as an array of bagpipe music played by descendants of Irish and Scottish settlers; the biggest bagpipe band on modern Bermuda is the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band. Bermuda is also the home of one of the most popular Caribbean music groups in the United States, the Bermuda Strollers.
The islands are also home to gombey
Gombey
The Gombey is an iconic symbol of Bermuda, this folklife tradition reflecting the island’s blend of African, Native American, Caribbean and British cultures, incorporating them over time into a unique performance art full of colorful and intricate masquerade, dance and drumming.Dancers are usually...
dancers, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, drum majorette bands, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and other styles.
Folk music
Bermuda is home to several folk traditions, including pipe bands, the gombey dance and a ballad song.Gombey
The Gombey dance is an iconic symbol of Bermudan culture. It mixes elements of British, West African and indigenous New World cultures. Dancers have to be male,have to be black and their father has to have been a Gombey dancer and they perform in groups of 10-30 in wild masquerade costumes with brilliant colors and odd angles, meant to evoke the plumage of tropical birds; they are sometimes based on Bible verses. Gombey dances are taught orally, through family members. The dances are energetic, and grow swifter gradually, while the spectators become more wild and energetic. The gombey tradition is at its liveliest during the Christmas season, and is also performed during Boxing DayBoxing Day
Boxing Day is a bank or public holiday that occurs on 26 December, or the first or second weekday after Christmas Day, depending on national or regional laws. It is observed in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth nations. In Ireland, it is recognized as...
, Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
, New Year's Day
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...
, football and cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
matches and other festivals and celebrations.
The word "Gombey" is related to the Bahamian "Goombay
Goombay
Goombay is a form of Bahamian music and a drum used to create it. The goombay drum is a membranophone with one goat skin head held between the legs and played with the hands or sticks....
", a similar dance tradition. It also refers to a specific drum of African origin (see List of Caribbean drums). In addition to the Bahamian Goombay tradition, Gombey is similar to some other Afro-Caribbean styles and celebrations (such as the Mummers). Afro-Caribbeans brought to Bermuda as slaves or convicts during colonial times introduced other Caribbean traditions.
-Read full Wiki on Gombey
Gombey
The Gombey is an iconic symbol of Bermuda, this folklife tradition reflecting the island’s blend of African, Native American, Caribbean and British cultures, incorporating them over time into a unique performance art full of colorful and intricate masquerade, dance and drumming.Dancers are usually...
.
Ballad
Bermuda's ballad tradition has declined in the 20th and 21st century, though it remains popular among a devoted subculture on the island. The Bermudan ballad is characterized by "wry, self-deprecating humor", often improvised, and concerned with the rapid change of Bermudan culture.The most famous Bermudan balladeer is Hubert Smith
Hubert Smith
Hubert John Forster Smith was the chief agent of the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland between 1942 and 1961.-Life and career:...
, a popular local composer who performed for many visiting royalty and foreign heads of state. He is also the composer of "Bermuda Is Another World", an unofficial anthem for the island.
Bagpipe music
Bermuda has a strong Scottish and Irish cultural presence, and is home to well-known bagpipe bands that draw on those traditions, especially the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band. The bagpipe tradition was brought to Bermuda by Scottish and Irish soldiers from the 18th to the 20th centuries.There were, until relatively recently, two major bagpipe bands in Bermuda, the Bermuda Cadets Pipe Band and the Bermuda Police Pipe Band. Both bands formed in 1955 and disbanded in 1992, the same year the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band was formed. Other historically important bagpipe bands include the Salvation Army Young People's Band, which dates back to the 1930s.
Choirs
Religious choir singing is also popular on Bermuda. Well-known choirs include the Roman Catholic Diocesan Choir, as well as the non-church choirs Philharmonic Choir and Post Office Choir.Calypso
Calypso first became a part of Bermuda music in the 1940s and 50s. It was imported from Trinidad and Tobago. The Talbot Brothers were the island's first major calypsonianCalypsonian
A calypsonian , originally known as the chantwell is a musician, from the Anglophone Caribbean, who sings songs called calypso. Calypsos are musical renditions having their origins in the West African griot tradition...
s; they organized as a group in 1942, and began touring the United States by the early 1950s.
Norman Luboff
Norman Luboff
Norman Luboff was an American music arranger, music publisher, and choir director.-Early years:Norman Luboff was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1917. He studied piano as a child and participated in his high school chorus. Luboff studied at the University of Chicago and Central College in Chicago...
followed in the footsteps of Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
n-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
singer Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
in popularizing Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
ian calypso. Luboff de-emphasized the saucy, ribald side of calypso and created a popular form that appealed to the masses. His signature song is "Yellow Bird" which became very popular in the 1960s.
Steelpan
Steelpan music was invented in the late 1930s TrinidadTrinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
, and was brought to Bermuda by a number of groups, including the Esso Steel Band, who moved to Bermuda in the 1950s. Esso became known for arranging Western classical music for the steelpan. In the 1960s, local choral traditions were merged with calypso and steelpan to create a distinctively Bermudian style.
Music institutions
Bermuda is home to the Bermuda Ballet Association, which was founded by Patricia Gray in 1962, with support from Ana Roje. Other music institutions include the Bermuda National Youth Jazz Ensemble and the Bermuda Philharmonic Orchestra. There is also a Bermuda Folk Club. There is a Portuguese Cultural Association which promotes the culture of the large Portuguese population on Bermuda, especially tradition folk dances of the AzoresAzores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
. The Bermuda Philharmonic conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
is Gary Burgess, a former opera singer. Bermuda has also produced notable classical musicians in Marcelle Clamens, an opera singer, mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
Jane Farge, pianists Peter Carpenter
Peter Carpenter
Captain Peter Carpenter was a fighter ace in World War I credited with 24 victories.-Early life:Peter Carpenter was born in Cardiff, Wales to Peter S. and Jane Carpenter, who had eight other children....
and Karol Sue Reddington, and Joyce Mary Helen DeShield.
Further reading
- Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, Bermuda - Official Website of the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs
- Bermuda Connections: Online Resource Guide - Free Cultural Resources on the community culture and history of Bermuda and its relationship to the global context of culture introducing students to traditional arts in Bermuda and to concepts and methods for understanding more about these expressions of local culture.