Songs of Sweet Fire is a collection of 15 songs and sonnets from the plays of William Shakespeare, set to Diane’s original jazz, folk, blues, bossa nova and funk music. The songs were chosen from the following plays and sonnets:

1. The Cuckoo song – Love’s Labour’s Lost
2. Sigh no more – Much Ado About Nothing
3. For love of you – Sonnet XV
4. Rain every day – Twelfth Night
5. Desi’s blues – Othello
6. Mistress Mine – Twelfth Night
7. The Fabulous Minstrel – Henry VIII
8. Take those lips away – Measure For Measure
9. The Lover and his lass – As You Like It
10. The Beauty of your eyes – Sonnet XVII
11. Be Merry – Henry IV, Part 2
12. She loves another – Twelfth Night
13. Goodbye to the devil – Twelfth Night
14. Till the world goes round – Anthony & Cleopatra
15. Under the blossom – The Tempest

All music composed and arranged by Diane Nalini to lyrics by William Shakespeare

Personnel:
Diane Nalini: voice
Dany Roy: tenor and soprano saxophones
Vanessa Rodrigues: Hammond B-3 organ, Rhodes, piano
Mike Rud: electric guitar
Mike Berard: acoustic, 12-string and electric guitar
Tim Nolan: double bass and electric bass
Camil Bélisle: drums
Jim Doxas: percussion

(c) 2005 Diane Nalini de Kerckhove

You can read more about this project in a feature article that was published (starting p. 30) in The Portico Magazine  when the album came out.

Since then, Diane has performed these songs around the world at various clubs and concerts, including in the UK at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Room (Oxford) and the 606 Club (London); and in Canada at the Stratford Festival and St. Laurence Shakespeare Festival. Most recently, she performed selections in the first half of a Shakespeare-themed double bill concert called “Swinging the Bard” with the Ottawa Jazz Orchestra (with Duke Ellington’s “Such Sweet Thunder” in the second half) in 2015.

She has also given a series of warmly received talks/performances on setting Shakespeare to music at conferences ranging from Google’s SciFoo Camp, to Hart House’s SciBar Camp, to Renaissance Weekend, to a keynote address at the Regina Teachers Association, to appearances at McNally Robinson bookstores in Saskatoon and Winnipeg.