Donnacha Dennehy's "Grá agus Bás" Featured on NPR's "Weekend Edition"
"Grá agus Bás, the Nonesuch Records debut from Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy, is due out tomorrow. The album—which includes the title piece, inspired by Sean Nós 'old style' Irish vocal music, as well as the composer’s song cycle That the Night Come, comprising six settings of poems by W.B. Yeats—was featured on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.
On the title piece, says NPR's Jeff Lunden, 'The singer's plaintive cries sound very much like phrases from Irish folk music, while the accompaniment features a kind of pulsating minimalist shimmer, played by a classical music group called Crash Ensemble.'
Lunden talks with the composer about finding inspiration for the title piece in 'long, all-night sessions' of singing and poetry at his grandmother's home, and connecting with Irish singer Iarla O’Lionáird, a well-known performer of old-style music, to collaborate on the new piece. Lunden also speaks with Dawn Upshaw, for whom Dennehy wrote the album's other piece, That the Night Come, and with Dennehy about it's 'classically Irish' source material, the poems of Yeats."
On the title piece, says NPR's Jeff Lunden, 'The singer's plaintive cries sound very much like phrases from Irish folk music, while the accompaniment features a kind of pulsating minimalist shimmer, played by a classical music group called Crash Ensemble.'
Lunden talks with the composer about finding inspiration for the title piece in 'long, all-night sessions' of singing and poetry at his grandmother's home, and connecting with Irish singer Iarla O’Lionáird, a well-known performer of old-style music, to collaborate on the new piece. Lunden also speaks with Dawn Upshaw, for whom Dennehy wrote the album's other piece, That the Night Come, and with Dennehy about it's 'classically Irish' source material, the poems of Yeats."
Comments