A Mountain Contour Song for Two Islands

This piece was inspired by Electra’s mixed Scottish and Greek heritage - she has taken the mountain contour lines from maps of her home on the Scottish Isle of Arran as its thematic material, which is also where I grew up.

Electra has used the mountain contour lines from the maps to create an element of choreography, as the shapes are traced in the air and on the drum heads using granite rocks.

The ideas from Chinese drumming, including the use of dramatic storytelling with sound and movement, and the use of dialect rhythms, are elements which are present in the Gaelic music of the Western Isles. Gaelic speech rhythms also influence the piece, as the descriptive names of the mountains influence cyclic percussion and flute lines.

The use of the flautist’s voice brings together influences from Gaelic Hebridean song traditions, as well as elements of the Byzantine chant which is present in the communities around Electra’s Greek family’s home of the island of Chios.

Electra describes this as a kind of ‘borderless’ music, bringing together influences from different musical cultures into her compositional language, drawing upon her dual island heritage of Scotland and Greece, as well as Tangram Ensemble’s roots in Chinese music, since the piece was workshopped and premiered by them.

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