Éin – The Birds of Dublin (2022)

for flute/piccolo, violin, cello, percussion and optional slide guitar.

Duration: Variable.

Commissioned by the Ruaille Buaille Children’s Music Festival Lucan, Dublin.

Premiered by Aisling Agnew (flute/piccolo), Róisín Donohoe (violin), Maria O’Connor (cello), Aidan Dunphy (percussion) and Dave Flynn (guitar), Ruaille Buaille Children’s Music Festival Lucan, Dublin, 11th June 2022.

Programme Note:

The piece is in 5 short improvised movements, each lasting 2-3 minutes.

I – Garden & Woodland Birds
II – Columbidae, Picidae & Cuculidae
III – Seabirds
IV – Corvidae
V – Dawn Chorus

This piece uses my transcriptions of songs and sounds of some of the many birds that populate my home city of Dublin, Ireland.

The musicians mostly improvise around a basic ‘plot’ using these detailed transcriptions. A good performance will result in a very colourful aviary of music.

The first four movements are named after specific groups of bird species, with the final piece being a completely improvised Dawn Chorus, using all the available bird sounds notated.