Recorded by BBC Radio 3 for their Twilight Series. Broadcast on 27th Oct on Radio 3 Breakfast, In Tune, and In Concert. Performed by members of the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Chloe Rooke. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

Coimheascar/Struggling Light

Recorded by the Ulster Orchestra Nov 2021 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Breakfast Feb 2022.

Laniakea

Performed by the 1st Old Boys Brass Band from Belfast at New Music Dublin Festival 2022.

Rasp

The Pearl Mvt IV BBC NOW (3:3:17) (Orchestra)

Sir, We Wish To See Jesus - Chamber Trio

Dancing While Others Sleep - Flute, Harp, Viola

‘Ezer’ is Hebrew for help or strength, and is associated with the idea of a female warrior. 

This piece is a reflection on the interaction between Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, in the Biblical book of Ruth. After losing her husband and two sons in the foreign country of Moab, Naomi leaves to return to Israel, but tries to convince Ruth to stay in her homeland. Naomi knows that when they return Ruth will be a foreigner and refugee, a barren widow with no prospects. In an act of commitment to both Naomi and Naomi’s God (Elohayik), Ruth declares that she will bind her fate with her mother-in-law’s and go with her.

Ezer - Two Female Voices

Enturfment - String Quartet

Wedding Song/Introit - SATB Choir

Commissioned by the Cantiunculae Chamber Choir for their War Memorial Concert, this piece is a setting of the poem by Wilfred Owen 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'.

Anthem For Doomed Youth - SATB Choir

Performed by the C4 Ensemble in Manhattan 01/12/18

Thomas Devin Reilly (1823-1854) was a journalist born in Monaghan and trained at Trinity College, Dublin. As a member of the Young Irelanders, a political and social movement for Irish nationalism, he was involved in the failed Famine Rebellion of 1848. He was forced to flee to Fermanagh, and then eventually sought refuge in the United States, from which he never returned. The text of this piece is taken from the letter Reilly wrote to his friend John Kelly, shortly after his exile began. In the letter, he expresses his home-sickness, his solitude and disillusionment in the ‘land of liberty’, and also reflects on the dangers of emigration.

I have selected text from the letter relating to three of Reilly’s experiences: his reflection on his experience in America, his account of the turbulent storms encountered on his voyage, and finally his nostalgic reminiscence of the day he left. These are tied together by his refrain ‘Dear John’. By using this phrase, the piece plays slightly on the idea of a ‘Dear John’ letter; a correspondence where an intimate relationship is severed (in this case by necessity rather than infidelity). The connection broken here however is not between lovers, but between a man and his home-country: the Ireland Reilly longs for. The eloquent description Reilly writes of his migrant experience is powerful, poignant, and resonates with the experiences of many in our world today.

Premieres II

A Slave in the Land of Liberty - SSAATTBB Choir, C4 Ensemble NYC Premiere

Crossing the Firth is my first work for electronics and manipulates vocal materials derived from a single plainchant melody and its spectral analysis. The plainchant was sourced from the Inchcolm Antiphon, a collection of Scottish chants used in the Abbey on Inchcolm, an island in the Firth of Forth. The piece explores interaction and dialogue over great distance or insurmountable barriers, hence the notion of crossing. By using references to sacred music and the ethereal effects produced by extreme reverb, the work touches on humanity’s estrangement from God, distanced by sin. This music will be used as the basis for a short film by Scottish filmmaker Oliver Mezger, reflecting on the changing terrain of Inchcolm due to erosion and using this as an analogy for Scotland’s distancing from its spiritual past.

Crossing the Firth - Electronics

Text by Anselm McDonnell & Margaret McKerron

Sat in an airless garden cage, heavy with stillness.
Fuzzy eyes flattening the greens into thin, drab smears,
Dust-curl and billow at my feet,
The lazy unfurling of my sin.

Where have they taken him?			Taken! Take me Lord.
Where have they laid his body?			Taken! Take me Lord.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.			Take me Lord.

Tenderly through the stifling air, a scent I know.
Aloes, sapphron, myrrh, nard, the fragrance of kings,
Or a gardener, arrayed in bright corollas,
A fragrant breeze that brushes tightened lungs.

Woman, why are you weeping?			Where have they taken him?
Woman, who are you seeking?			Where have they laid his body?
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

That voice I love, resonant with vibrant life.
Thrumming in my aching heart.

‘Mary, why all this weeping?’

At last my soul seemed to breathe…		Mary, breathe.

Asphyxiate - SSAATTBB Choir

Threads & Ribbons - Solo Baritone, performed by Vojtěch Šembera, Czech Republic

Esau’s Hunger is a reference to the Biblical scene in which Esau, hungry for food, sells his birthright to his younger twin Jacob in exchange for a meal. The story reveals not only Jacob’s deceptive nature, but the carelessness with which Esau despises God’s gift for him, selling it to gratify his insatiable desire for what is material and short-term. This piece - and the poem which inspired it - uses Esau’s appetite as an analogy for the desire for wealth that fuels our destructive use of resources; short-term gain that impacts both the lives we have been given, and the creation in which we live and have responsibility over. 

The musical material is primarily noise-based. The two guitar orchestras are combined with electronic parts to create four landscapes, the textures taking inspiration from the sounds of the natural world and the sonic qualities of machinery. Most sections are notated in a free tempo, which results in mass crowd textures as each musician performs the material individually. 

Esau's Hunger by Anselm McDonnell

Famished from the hunt,
He primes the insect-carriage with a cough of smoke.
His killing-songs are engines,
And the throaty hum of locusts.

Clumps of raw sod cling close,
Left as the metal tears their neighbours from the loam.
No art to this. No sheer blade.
Only the sullen thud of the blunt at its nadir.

All for the reddish pulp,
Sterile food that pleases eyes and plumps the wallet.
Esau’s hunger knows no bounds,
Nor is he sated though he feasts again.

Deeper wealth conceals itself -
Wonder that springs unbidden from my craftsmanship.
But his soul howls for baser lusts.
It burns for grotty coin
Tarnished with the fetid stink of my bloodsap.

Esau's Hunger - Double guitar orchestra & electronics, Ottawa, Canada

Sparrows' Anthem - SATB Choir & Oboe

Text by Flora Kirkland, 1903:

Children, the wide world over,
    Rally round your King;
 Join in the angel chorus,
    Let your voices ring.
Once in a lowly manger,
    Now exalted high;
Children, the wide world over,
    Sing, for the time draws nigh!

O children, rally round Him,
    Who was laid in manger low:
Sing, children, sing.

Children, the wide world over,
    Tell the story sweet;
Teach other hearts to praise Him;
    Bring them to His feet.
Come, as the sages, bearing
    Gifts, in worship true,
Bring as your gift to Jesus
    Some one to love Him too.

O children, rally round Him,
    Who was laid in manger low:
Sing, children, sing.

Children, The Wide World Over - Carol for Children's Choir

Anselm McDonnell is an Irish/Welsh contemporary classical composer based in Belfast who writes orchestral, chamber, choral, solo and electronic music. His work has been performed in Finland, Canada, Japan, Russia, France, North America and various locations around the UK and Ireland.

Anselm McDonnell

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