Saint Ambrose
What shall I say of the nightingale who keeps long watch over her nest, cherishing her eggs with the warmth of her body?
She solaces with the sweetness of her song
the sleepless labors of a long night. The highest aim of the nightingale, in my opinion, is to give life to her eggs by the sweet charm of her song no less than by the fostering warmth of her body.
Thomas of Cantimpré
... Phylomena the bird is named from phylos, which is 'love', and menos, which is 'sweet'. For this bird delights the listener with its wonderful song. It rejoices at the rising of the Sun and
prays for the coming happiness...
phylomena seeks to return to sounding life an art of music-making as we hope it perhaps existed in the dreams of once upon a time.
Mixing voices, the vielle and winds, with the occasional addition of a harp or symphonia, we bring listeners music from the Middle Ages, a time when minutes perhaps passed slightly slower, perhaps people took more time to listen, when art perhaps gestated longer — lived longer, too?
All life unravels out of motion and stillness, of moments already fully here, basking in the warmth of the Sun, and those still on their way, growing enveloped in the caring embrace of the night…
We seem to keep finding each other in these sweet dawning moments between sounds, at the end of one breath— and the beginning of the next stroke of the bow. Much can happen in these seemingly fleeting moments…
And, much like the phylomena, the caring, devoted and nurturing nightingale, we choose to fill our silences with patience and softness, allowing to be guided by the timelessness of our songs, inviting in the gentle inspiration of old to continue the motion into the next, refreshing sound wave of now.
