Andy Thorburn
Highland musician and composer
NEW SOLO CD FROM PIANIST ANDY THORBURN
Tuath
gu Deas
Download mp3 sound clips from the CD
(available to order online from MusicScotland)
clip
1 (1m 13s, 1Mb) * clip
2 (1m 07s, 1Mb)
Andy's composition Tuath gu Deas (North to South) is a work for 12 unaccompanied voices in Gaelic and Scots with lyrics by Aonghas MacNeacail. The piece was premiered at Celtic Connections in January as part of their New Voices commission series and will feature on STV's Gaelic music series Tacsi.
Tuath gu Deas is a musical expression of 2000 years, a colourful and rhythmic story with simple and intimate melodies balanced against larger scale choral patterns. It is a collage/chronicle of communities and migration to and from Scotland, as the country approaches a new cultural age.
The work had its first performance on Sunday 17th January in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, sung by twelve of Scotland's very best and weel-kent singers:
Rod Paterson, Jim Malcolm, Rory Campbell, Charlie MacLeod, Corrina Hewat, Elspeth Cowie, Mary MacMaster, Mary Ann Kennedy, Alyth McCormack, Lindsay Black, Christine Kydd and Heather MacLeod.
"... the piece succeeded superbly through Thorburn's boldly inventive, kaleidoscopic use of harmony, with shifting arrangements of sub-groups and soloists, sung and spoken passages, which built up to an aptly celebratory, authentically uplifting finish." (The Scotsman)
"... an undoubted triumph ... The piece was the star ..." (The Herald)