The Children of Lir
for flute quartet
2024
~12’
This piece explores the four separate hexagonal grids generated by one origin six-note chord within my hexagonal harmony system. I think of the four grids as ‘parallel’ instances of the same grid, which is in fact a torus with the top connecting to the bottom and the sides to each other.
The cosmic metaphors in the section names of the piece came first, informing the manipulation of musical materials, and from there I was led to the Cygnus A galaxy which I learned has a torus around its active galactic nucleus. So, four parallel Cygnus A galaxies leads to four swans, and from there to the Irish story of the four Children of Lir, who were turned into swans by their stepmother; these are the four flute players, and the story ties into the seemingly anomalous section ‘chorale’, as the Children take to singing while in swan form.
Written for and performed by Quatuor Flume, 24th April (Orpheus Institute, Ghent) and 28th May (Design Museum, Brussels) 2024
Zoé Beaudoin, piccolo
Sara Di Costanzo, alto flute
Tom Filczinger, bass flute
Lisa Kordic, flute