Siùil ò Rùn

for voice and piano or voice and classical guitar

duration: 6 minutes

text:  Irish Traditional

written for and dedicated to Jennifer Lanman

premiered on March 1st, 2006 in Bloomington, Indiana by Jennifer Lanman, Voice and Kaoru Yamamura, Piano

I was introduced to this beautiful Irish melody when Jennifer Lanman played me a recording of her singing it. The idea for this piece was to set this traditional Irish melody, which is often sung unaccompanied, in a kind of variation form, where the accompaniment varies with every verse/chorus pair. Even though the vocal part is essentially the same every time (except the words), I wanted to create the aural illusion, through the changing accompaniment, that the voice part was also subtly changing. The accompaniment starts very quiet and spare, and gradually gains intensity with each variation.

AUDIO: Siùil ò Rùn – Jennifer Lanman, voice – Kaoru Yamamura, piano

Voice/Piano

Voice/Guitar