Year: April 2018

Instrumentation: Electronics

Duration: 9:00″

Performance History: Premiered in Dublin at the Irish Georgian Society’s City Assembly House, 06/02/19. Second performance as part of an electronic showcase celebrating International Women’s Day in the Dundalk Institute of Technology 07/03/19. Mixtape Project. Also presented at HearSay International Audio Arts Festival 2019 in Kilfinane Ireland on 06/04/19. Broadcast scheduled for May 2019 on Radiophrenia Scotland.

About:
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.