LYRE (2023)

for Piano Trio (15 minutes)

“An opening for strings, with flickering grace notes and glassy harmonics, gained a new context over hushed piano chords that would then morph into flamboyant sweeps over imaginary lyre strings; all this in just a few minutes of sonic enchantment.”

William Dart in the New Zealand Herald – 23 September 2023

My grandmother was born in the Faroe Islands – a tiny, basalt archipelago of 18 islands nestling in the North Atlantic ocean, 11,000 miles away from Aotearoa New Zealand. My written ancestry there goes back to the 1500’s, and undoubtedly much further – to when the islands were first settled in c.900.

I took my family to the Faroe Islands in 2019. It was a bittersweet journey as my grandmother had never been able to return and my late father had longed to visit. Being there gave me an appreciation of the enormity of my family’s voyage and the profound life transformation they must have experienced when they arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Faroes are astonishing in their beauty and strangeness. Their isolation is like a tone in the air. Fog appears and disappears as if inhaled and exhaled by the surrounding sea.

In Greek mythology, Sirens lured sailors towards islands. They’re often depicted playing lyres – ancient stringed instruments that are also present in the folk traditions of Norway, Iceland and Ireland (all places with ancestral ties to the Faroes).

In this piece I explore the lure of islands. I imagine the sea as a lyre, accompanying the voices of islands calling to each other across vast distances. The horizon is always in view, with yet more islands beyond sight.

The piece quotes a traditional Faroese hymn – Jeg Stod Mig Op En Morgenstund / I Got Up One Morning.

It evokes the hypnotic rhythm of waves, the amorphous shapes of the Faroe Islands in fog, and the ways in which places (and the journeys between them) shape our identity.

LISTEN to a live performance by NZTrio