Eilean Fuinn (2017)
An evolving, multi-channel composition for Atlas Arts, responding to the landscape, weather, culture and deep history of the Scottish island of Skye. The work draws upon the multivalent Gaelic word fonn, which, according to Edward Dwelly, means ‘land, earth, plain’, ‘air, tune, music’ and the ‘drone of the bagpipe’. Eilean Fuinn therefore evokes the tradition of Scottish Piobaireachd with its layering of shifting drones, suggesting that the sea and the land are endlessly singing to each other. The composition incorporates fractalised, time-spun elements of the following traditional recordings:
Cumha na Cloinne (Lament for the Children) played by Decker Forrest, Highland bagpipes; Oran Manitoba played by Hector MacInnes, accordion, Em Tog orm mo Phìob (Bring Me My Pipes) and Am Iomramh Eadar Il’ A’s Uist (Rowing From Islay To Uist) played by Ronan Martin, fiddle; and Braes of Lochiel played by Frances Wilkins, concertina.
Commissioned by Atlas Arts and exhibited 07 – 23 September 2017.
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‘A mirror both to the landscape and the thoughts and memories we might place upon it, at once unconventionally meditative, challenging, and strange.’
Luke Turner (The Quietus)