Choral Archives - Seán Doherty Music

We Must Create

Sean Doherty — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 17:14:46 +0000

We must forge our own identity again and again through the creative act. This act could be the stacking of Lego bricks or it could be the composition of a symphony. Composition literally means ‘putting together’ (like playing with Lego!). It is only through this serious type of creative play called ‘culture’, can we find out who we are or who we can be. In my composition, I have recycled music mentioned in the poem, from nursery rhymes to Jimi Hendrix, and music that is not mentioned in the poem, from Dr Dre to George Frederick Handel. I have quoted this music not only because it was particularly apt in the context of the poem, but also to say something more profound to young performers, who are perhaps singing on stage for the very first time: every area of culture is open for your appreciation, with treasures to be explored and then plundered for creative ends to say something new. You are as welcome into the house of Handel as you are into the house of Hendrix—in fact, these two composers lived next door to each other (but two hundred years apart!).

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The Promise

Sean Doherty — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 13:45:56 +0000

These empathic refusals of ‘No, I won’t do it’ will be familiar to all parents, along with foot stamping and head shaking. This beautiful and enigmatic text by the Irish poet Paula Meehan has a tinge of melancholy, which makes us question who the speaker is talking to. Are they talking to authority figure, like a parent or teacher, or to themselves?

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The Way We Tell A Story

Sean Doherty — Wed, 08 May 2024 21:47:04 +0000

Sure I know… lookit… this is it…yah, yah, yah…desperate…I’m sure…

These and similar expressions will be familiar to anyone who’s ever had a conversation in Ireland. Known to linguists as ‘back channeling’, they are verbal and non-verbal cues used to signal that the listener is paying attention to the story. The speaker and the listener collaborate in telling the story through these expressions. Back channeling is among the hallmarks of Irish conversation that I have incorporated into this song, along with the fast pace, rhetorical repetitions, talking across each other, disagreement couched in the mildest of terms, and the Ulster dialect of English.

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The Happy Grass

Sean Doherty — Tue, 07 May 2024 15:46:14 +0000

This piece celebrates the 120th anniversary of the foundation of the Culwick Choral Society. This remarkable continuity is captured in the poem ‘The Happy Grass’ by the renowned Irish poet Brendan Kennelly, which honours the eternal nature of song in society. A calm, reflective opening, which commemorates past singers, is contrasted with a danse macabre in which the text becomes muddled to reflect the ‘delusions of communication’ of speech, that the poet contrasts with the true communication of song. Finally, opening musical material returns, reflecting the cyclical nature of life, and assuring us that though life may pass away, the tradition of song is everlasting. This setting, therefore, will honour all singers—past, present, and future—of the Culwick Choral Society.

https://seandohertymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Doherty_The-Happy-Grass_SATBdiv.-Pno_2018.mp3

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All the Things Magicians Do

Sean Doherty — Thu, 02 May 2024 12:01:40 +0000

This setting of the Belfast-born C. S. Lewis’s Hymn was written to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the inception of Belfast Phil Kids. In this exuberant poem, Lewis implores us to notice that the wonders of nature’s beauty are always before us, if we only opened our eyes to see them.

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Bean Pháidín

Sean Doherty — Thu, 02 May 2024 11:13:11 +0000

In this darkly comic song from the West of Ireland, a madly jealous woman wants to break the legs and murder the wife of the eponymous ‘Wee Paddy’, so she can have him all to herself. In this arrangement, the woman attempts to maintain a veneer of respectability by singing a sean-nós (old-style) song, but the mask soon slips and she descends into a jealous, murderous rage: the insistent ostinato in the inner voices becomes ever more obsessive; in the melody, the number of repetitions of ‘nach mise’ (not I) increases with each refrain; cross-rhythms exchange blows as the woman wishes for broken bones; the lamento bass in the chorus is extended into a chromatic fourth, or passus duriusculus by the end, a venerable symbol of lamentation.

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Anlatamiyorum

Sean Doherty — Thu, 02 May 2024 10:29:44 +0000

The poet Orhan Veli is beloved in his native Turkey and Anlatamıyorum is one of his most beloved poems. He was a radical artist who sought to transform fundamentally the traditional forms in Turkish poetry. In Anlatamıyorum, he asks the reader if they can understand his suffering by reading his poems, by hearing his cries or touching his tears through the words themselves. He discovers the need for music and song to convey our emotion in times of despair. Finally, he tells us of a utopia where he can speak freely. This place is so close that he can even hear it, but he is not allowed to tell us where it is. This sense of denial runs through my setting of this poem, with its phrases interrupted or undermined by repetitions of ‘Anlatamıyorum’ (I can’t tell).

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Mother

Sean Doherty — Thu, 02 May 2024 09:43:19 +0000

This is a poem about reflections: the sun’s reflection in the moon, a child’s reflection in a mirror, a swan’s reflection in the water, starlight reflected on a wall. The speaker describes her mother as one who gives an ethereal beauty to a child’s image of themselves, not just returning their image but transfiguring and magnifying it. These reflections are imperfect: the mirror is cracked, the water is moving, the wall is grey. It is as if our memory is foggy, our recollections are impressionistic. Though we cannot remember exactly, we retain the sensation of a mother’s love. I have sought to heighten these many imperfect reflections in this piece, by including many reflections in musical time and space.

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Mobhi’s Belt

Sean Doherty — Thu, 02 May 2024 07:59:17 +0000

It was a pandemic, such as we are currently living through, that gave St Colmcille the impetus to found his first monastery. He was forced to flee from his teacher St Mobhi’s monastery in Glasnevin, Dublin, by a contagious plague that ravaged Ireland, the ‘Buidhe Chonnaill’ or ‘yellow pestilence’. He resorted to his home in Ulster and was granted land at Derry by the King of Ireland but refused to found a monastery there until he had permission from St. Mobhi. Two of Mobhi’s monks arrived at Derry to tell Colmcille that Mobhi had died of the plague and to prove this, they presented him with Mobhi’s belt. Colmcille took this as a sign that he could proceed to found the monastery at Derry. That we are living through another pandemic during the 1500 anniversary year of Colmcille’s birth emphasis the understanding that pandemic is a constant of human experience. This understanding is particularly relevant to the people of Donegal and Derry, who were so badly impacted by COVID-19. My thanks to Deirdre Ní Chaomhánaigh who helped me prepare the text of ‘Crios Mobi’. Go raibh míle maith agat.

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The Eternal Rebel

Sean Doherty — Wed, 01 May 2024 16:04:05 +0000

The Irish poet and dramatist Eva Gore-Booth was a committed suffragist, pacifist, social worker, and labour activist. She was born at Lissadell House, County Sligo, the younger sister of Constance Gore-Booth, a revolutionary later known as Countess Markievicz. In Greek mythology Prometheus, the eternal rebel, creates humanity from clay and steals fire from the gods and gives it to humanity as civilisation. He is sentenced to perpetual torment as punishment, bound to a rock with a bird-of-prey eating his liver, which grew back each day. Prometheus represents the struggle of those who attempt to improve human existence, as did Eva Gore-Booth and her partner Esther Roper in their tireless activism. Cantigas Women’s Choir thank the anonymous donor who funded this commission.

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