Album Notes

Advise : Go to Jules website http://www.whistle-flute.com for high (cd) quality mp3's and interesting information about his cd's.
By clicking a track on this CD Baby page you will only get a poor quality and selection...

"Nehalennia Suite" is a musical ode to Nehalennia, the Zeeland goddess. The Nehalennia cult is of Celtic-German origine but was "romanised" after Julius Caesar's army conquered this area. The archeological proof of this lies under sealevel now : two Gallo-Roman Nehalennia temples at Domburg and Colijnsplaat. (Walacria and Ganuenta in Roman times)

Jules has presented his Nehalennia Suite at the official opening of the reconstruction of one of these temples at Colijnsplaat (2005)

His website gives a lot of interesting background information about the Nehalennia-cult : english text from the cd-booklet and you can listen to high-(cd)quality mp3's of all 9 tracks/themes.

In 1975 Jules began to play celtic music on whistles, Boehmsystem flute and wooden flute.

As a street-, and pub-musician he got involved in the irish music scene in Holland and Belgium and started to participate in some bands.
One of his examples and teachers was Thomas ("Tommy") Keenan who lived and played the whistle and uillean pipes in the Antwerp pubs in that period.
In late-night-sessions in that Belgian town he also got befriended and inspired then, by some musicians that later became wellknown in the celtic music scene :
Helen Flaherty (Shantalla), Kieran Fahey (ex-"Shantalla"), Rudi Velghe ("Orion") and Gerard Hirsh ("Meghan")

In 1995 he started a duo with Bernard Willemse (neo-celtic harp) and soon his brother Rob Bitter joined "Finglas" (gaelic Fionnglaise : "clear stream") , and in 1997 they made a successfull audio-tape "WaterEmotion" with guestplayers Frenk van Hooff on Irish bouzouki) and Philippe Masure ("Comas") on guitar
Soon Jules and Rob started to play in Philippe's band "Dolmen" too, and in 2001 "Finglas" was reborn and introduced successfully as a 6 piece band on the 8th celtic festival in Bergen op Zoom : see and listen: www.finglas.com

In 2002 Jules made and produced his first cd "Druid Dance" and started "FluitPraxis" and was asked to do workshops for the dutch association for folkmusic (SVN)
He also does some free lance radiowork and recently made two ethno-musical documentairies for dutch Radio 1 (VPRO) : "Les Chaudrons de Bretagne" and "The Irish Horns of the Iron and Bronze Age".

If you visit his website you can listen to high quality mp3 demo's (320kbps) of all his cd's, read and find out more about his workshops,concerts, reviews ect.

Cd "Druid Dance" : FPCD001

jigs, reels, airs, songs, a true celtic soundscape he made with befriended and experienced musicians.
Full color booklet (16 pages english-dutch) contains photo's and illustrations and a lot of interesting information about the music.

Cd "Nehalennia Suite" : FPCD002

His musical ode to the Celtic goddess from Zeeland.
Full color booklet (24 pages english-dutch) contains original illustrations and historical information about this mysterious local goddess and her temples that were found in the sea at Domburg and Colijnsplaat.

Cd "Neeltje and Saltbeard" : FPCD005

A fascinating celtic tale about Saltbeard the bard of the Nehalennia temples, who wants to become a merman to be able to live in two worlds....
There's music and special sound effects....
For kids age 7 - 77....and very usefull for a Nehalennia schoolproject.
Soon available here at CD Baby in 3 versions!
FPCD003 "Neeltje en Zoutbaard" = dutch
FPCD004 "Neeltje und Saltzbart"= german
FPCD005 "Neeltje and Saltbeard"= english

Cd "The Irish Beatconductor" (FPCD006)

Play Irish music along with a diversity of slow and fast rithems.(66 tracks)
Every percussion track has four speeds, so you can learn to play steadily and with swing according to your level.