African adventure with guitar music
A pink feather floats unnoticed from the African sky, onto the head of Meeshu, a curious young monkey. He learns that it has magical gifts to bestow …. but the feather has no plans to stay … it wafts along visiting another animal, then another, lending to each a different gift … until trouble brews, and the feather must be found, and returned to its true owner…
"The Pink Feather is an enchanting children’s story in two parts written by Joyce Fleur with interludes of atmospheric, evocative and original solo guitar music played by Colin Tommis.
Simply put, it tells the story of a feather floating around the skies of Africa where it visits various animals bestowing mysterious gifts to each one.
Fleur has a clear and distinctive voice, ideal for reading this story and together with Tommis’s superbly descriptive music they have put together an extremely attractive package, one where I could imagine children being wholly enthralled throughout the whole 40 minutes. The story is ideally suited to children of between 7-10 years old.
The CD cover is designed with six beautiful full colour illustrations (also by Fleur) and the recording is of high quality throughout.
As an amusing and very brief ‘bonus track’ the disc finishes with a discussion between the narrator and David Qualey, the producer of the album, on the plural of ‘shrimp’: you really need to listen to the story to appreciate this.
The Pink Feather would make an unusual and ideal Christmas/birthday present for anyone with children. I loved it!"
Steve Marsh
Classical Guitar Magazine
December 2009
"The Pink Feather is a delightful story, written and told beautifully by Joyce Fleur. The tale is illustrated in two ways. Firstly by delicate and charming pastel pictures by Joyce of the animals and birds of Africa where the story is set, using warm earthy shades for background and bright zinging colours for the characters, which are sometimes muted into dreamy mixes of both. These were enlarged on a big screen so that they could be seen by all. Secondly, the story is illustrated by the wonderfully evocative guitar playing by Colin Tommis, who has created the sounds of the story - the animals, the moods, the landscapes. The children were enraptured, and there was a long queue of questions they wished to ask at the end, about the music, the plot, and how the whole was devised - a sure sign that the performance was a success! It was very enjoyable."
Honor Giles, Director, Lymm Festival 2009
"At the WWT National Wetland Centre Wales each year we put on a Flamingo Festival. This year, as part of our festival, we were lucky enough to host performances of the Pink Feather. An appreciative audience sat enrapt, listening and looking, caught up in a quiet careful blending of pictures, words and music - drawn, written and performed by Joyce and Colin. Sometimes gently, sometimes fast and lively, we were taken on a journey following a wondrous lost pink feather, you’ll have to guess by what kind of bird!
As we follow, we see the feather affecting the lives of all who become its temporary owner - be it cheeky monkey, wily snake or agonised lion. At the journey’s end and the story’s close, we have a pile of gifts to take away: Joyce’s wonderful characters, and her pastels of animals and landscapes - all interwoven with the crafted music of Colin."
Dominic Carmichael, Director, WWT Centre,
Llanelli 2009
The Pink Feather was conceived when Colin composed some music for one of his young guitar students, who requested that it should represent different animals.
The music inspired Joyce Fleur to create a story to link the pieces together, and so it evolved, with more music and a longer story, and some illustrations also done by Joyce.
Joyce Fleur is a flautist and artist, and has also enjoyed writing stories since she was a child. “Colin’s music is hugely evocative,” she says, “it captures all the moods of the story and its characters, from the gracefulness of the giraffe, the excitement of the lion cub fight, and the dark dangers of the African plains at night.”