We Must Create: Music for Children's and Youth Choirs 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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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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The Fiddler of Dooney

Sean Doherty — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 21:17:45 +0000

Dooney is a rock overlooking Lough Gill, just outside Sligo town. It was immortalised in this cherished poem by W.B. Yeats, first published in 1892. In this poem, the fiddler precedes their clerical relatives through the pearly gates, where the dead await the fiddler in the afterlife and heaven is a céilí at the crossroads. In this piece, the choir perform the set dance, The Waves of Tory, in which the dancers represent the rolling waves off the north-west coast of Ireland.

Seán Doherty · The Fiddler of Dooney (Practice Tracks)

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Come and Sing

Sean Doherty — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 20:32:54 +0000

‘Come and Sing’ was written to celebrate the establishment of a girls’ choir at St Columb’s Cathedral, Derry. The text is by Irish hymn writer Cecil Frances Alexander, famous for her Christmas carol ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. Alexander had a long connection with this cathedral and she looks down on the young singers from her stained-glass portrait in the nave. She wrote the poem of ‘Come and Sing’ for the music educationalist John Hullah (1812–84). This explains the pedagogical nature of the poem, which uses musical terminology used as metaphors throughout the poem, for example, measure, chord, cadence, and pulse. I wanted to include the most famous melody of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ to highlight the historical association of the cathedral with Alexander’s most famous hymn. The well-known melody by Henry Gauntlett (1805–76) is used as a descant in the final verse.

Seán Doherty · Come And Sing (Practice Track)

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Is Buaine Port ná Glór n-Éan

Sean Doherty — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 17:20:27 +0000

This is a setting of an old Irish saying, a seanfhocail (literally ‘old words’), with its pithy wisdom, imparts that culture, music and literature, outlasts both nature and wealth, which are ephemeral. The metre of the seanfhocail falls naturally into the rhythm of an Irish slip jig, and there are many other references to Irish music and dance in this piece. Singers can relish sound of words, which, when fragmented and repeated, should be reminiscent of the bodhrán—an Irish hand-held drum.

Seán Doherty · Port ná Glór na n-Éan (Practice Tracks)

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