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

Recorded by the Ulster Orchestra and broadcast on the New Music Show, BBC Radio 3.

Coruscate, which means bursts of light, is a piece inspired by the antics of my two nephews, Daniel and Noah (4 and 2 years old) and the wonder, energy, and exuberance of their adventures. The orchestra is used to evoke the sounds of wailing fire-engines, an out-of-control bike ride, the chuffing rhythm of toy trains, a space blaster fight, and the gradual winding down of energy as the battle for bedtime ensues. The piece is in a roughly shaped rondo form - where the opening gestures/harmony are referenced throughout the piece - although each time the opening music appears it becomes slower and more lethargic; its energy gradually dissipating from the abrupt, vibrant opening. Interspersing this music are virtuosic solo episodes that burble and caper about with agile merriment. Despite its playfulness the music aims not at a saccharine picture of childhood, but one underpinned by the thrill and danger of experiencing the unknown.

When I started to write Coruscate, I wanted to create something consciously fun and quirky, inspired by the antics of my two nephews, Daniel and Noah, and the crazy energy and excitement they bring to everything. The orchestra has a wide-ranging palette of sounds to draw on, so I felt I could create materials that alluded to some of their childhood adventures: out-of-control bike rides, the rhythms of toy trains, space blaster fights, and wailing fire-engines. The music gradually slows down over the trajectory of the piece: it opens with a burst of fizzing energy that reappears several times, until finally at the end the music stretches, yawns, and settles down into a sense of stasis. My music often pairs textural effects with clear melodic material, and I use the orchestra to paint backgrounds of different colours while singular melodic lines dance about energetically in the foreground.

Coruscate (Orchestra)

The Great White Throne (Ulster Museum)(Pierrot Ensemble)

Dancing While Others Sleep - Flute, Harp, Viola

Wedding Song/Introit - 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

Five Scenes From A Retro Viewer - Flute, Harp & Viola

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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