Commissioned by Victoria Minton, A' Chorra-ghritheach (The Heron), is a setting of a portion of the poem of the same title by Sorley MacLean.  The text is an early work for MacLean, and is the first in a long career of poetry in Gaelic. The portion of the poem used in this work compares the mind and life of a heron with those of the author. This comparison expresses dissatisfaction with the complications humans impose on their own emotional lives, especially in contrast with the simplicity of a heron’s. Musically, this comparison is supported in the work by alternating between two sonic areas; one representing the natural world of the heron, and the other the artificial world of the poet. The first area is based both rhythmically and in pitch material on the call of the Grey Heron, a bird native to Scotland and likely the subject of MacLean’s poem. Using audio analysis software, the overtone content of a Grey Heron’s call was analyzed and an octatonic scale with an added F# was found in the lower partials. This scale makes up the pitch content of the first area. This first area is also dominated by a long-short rhythmic motive which is also present in a heron’s call. The second area is based on the pitch compliment of this scale and could be said to be its pitch opposite. The second area is rhythmically much more texturally oriented, with sustained tones and quick, repeated rhythmic figures filling out the texture.
	In addition to the Gaelic text and Scottish subject matter, the music also contains several other allusions to Scottish music, most notably in its use of syncopated rhythmic patterns and the “Scotch snap” a sixteenth, dotted-eighth pattern commonly found in traditional Scottish music. The composer wishes to thank Ken Mcintosh and Rudy Ramsey for their help with the Gaelic text.

A'Chorra-ghritheach (The Heron)

A fierce experimentalist, Stephen Bailey is a Colorado-based composer, instrument maker,
producer and sound engineer. Stephen’s compositional output embodies a language in which the
primary concern is expression, and the primary tool is texture. This definitively contemporary
language borrows techniques from composers of minimalism, sound mass, new simplicity, and
post-serialism and explores them on the canvas of chamber, choral, and electronic music. The
result can be both ecstatically serene and forcefully chaotic, both sumptuously beautiful and
disturbingly ugly.
Stephen’s music has been featured twice on the Playground Ensemble’s annual Colorado
Composer’s Concert, as well as their 2013 New Creations concert. Stephen was also one of three
composers to have their music performed at The Classical Salon at Dazzle Nightclub. His
devotion to modern music has garnered him commissions from the Metropolitan State University
of Denver Men’s Choir, Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church and a number of Denver-area
musicians and chamber groups. He has studied composition with composers such as Conrad
Kehn, Leanna Kirchoff, Fred Hess, Cherise Leiter, Abbie Betinis, Brian Johanson, and Chris
Malloy. He holds an Associate of Arts degree and a Bachelor of Music degree in music
composition from Arapahoe Community College and Metropolitan State University of Denver
respectively and is currently pursuing a Masters of Music in composition from the University of
Denver.