New choral work: ‘The Unstartled Bird’

Unaccompanied SATB with some divisi
Duration: 3’

PDF perusal score: €10. Hire sets available from €30 (depending on number of singers and performances).

Storms Bert and Darragh have been and gone, leaving destruction, renewal and peace in their wake.

I happened to be finishing this work at night, while Darragh was terror, and faith was that the ash wouldn’t give in to die-back and rubble the house. As it was, the ash swayed and held and it was the beech that cleaved.

Somehow, amidst this, the animals shift, align and sleep. The piece features the call of one my local blackbirds, and that soft talk that blackbirds do when they’re not singing for wide spaces. The title is a grateful nod to Norah McGuinness’ painting, ‘The Startled Bird’, in the National Gallery, Ireland, which also features a blackbird.

the-wind-ballynamona
Beech tree cleaved, Ballynamona

More Fieldwork Pieces

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Part of the project, ‘The Singing Glacier’. For violin, viola and glockenspiel.
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