Commissioned by Harry Woolhouse Charitable Trust to celebrate 25th anniversary of Imperial College Sinfonietta. Premiered 9 June, Great Hall, Imperial College, South Kensington
For solo marimba, solo timpani and two orchestras. Written to celebrate the wider community of Imperial College Sinfonietta and the rich artistic life at Imperial College, London. At the premiere, the second orchestra was made up of Sinfonietta alumni who played alongside current members in the Great Hall, Imperial College, South Kensington. The two undergraduate soloists were Ben Bishop (marimba) and Thomas Fox (timpani). Both played superbly. We were delighted that Daniel Capps, founding conductor of Sinfonietta, returned to conduct the premiere.
Carrownagappul is inspired by peat bogs and a week of fieldwork I did at Carrownagappul raised bog, Galway in July 2023. Thank you to the National Parks and Wildlife Service – in particular, Rebecca Teesdale, Regional Manager, East Galway – for permission to live on the bog for a week. Thanks also to Maura Hannon and the team at Galway’s Living Bog Interpretive Centre, Mountbellew, H53 TN67 for a warm welcome and a delicious lunch!
I was thrilled to collaborate with Tina Claffey for this project. Ireland’s premier photographer of bogs, wetlands and eskers, Tina walked the bog with me one day and shared her practice. Her photography books are a stunning ‘way in’ to the wonders of these wildernesses. She kindly agreed that some of her macro-lens photographs feature in the concert programme booklet. We were delighted that she attended the concert and spoke to the audience.
Peat bogs are essential. They account for c. 3% of the earth’s land and they store twice as much carbon as its trees. A ‘raised bog’ like Carrownagappul is dome-like in cross section and, like most bogs, rises at the rate of about 1 mm per year. To dig down 1 metre is to retrace a thousand years. In many ways, bogs are wetland ‘glaciers’. Like glaciers, they preserve artefacts and wood in remarkable condition: the ‘bog wood’ hard, like marimba keys. And as with glaciers, the bogs are never still. They expand or shrink constantly, and sometimes move quickly, on a massive scale.
Bog surface is delicately stretched over the resonant peat mass beneath. You walk on it as if on an almighty drum. On a ‘floating’ bog you can stamp or jump and feel the whole land move. Bogs, like mighty ears to the heart of the land, are alive with sound. Birdsong reverberates, water is multi-voiced, and the wind sings.
Duration: 17′
Main orchestra: 2*+1, 2*,2,2; 2,3,3,1; 2perc (perc 1 – bd, quijada, pastic milk bottles; perc 2 – t-t, stones, claves, quijada) strgs; solo marimba; solo timp
Second orchestra, ‘Echo Band’ (can be a community or college orchestra; woodwind parts can be doubled): 2,2,2,1; 2,1,2,0; hp; 1perc (small drum, bell, glass milk bottles, bowed cymbal); strgs
Main orchestra full score. Echo Band full score.
