Hanna Tuulikki: Away with the Birds

Hanna Tuulikki’s Away with the Birds (Air falbh leis na h-eòin) is a performance piece exploring the mimesis of birds in Gaelic song. The performance is an ambitious site-specific project on the Isle of Canna and is an outdoor staging of Tuulikki’s score, fragmenting and re-weaving extracts of Gaelic songs into a soundscape that grows out of the landscape.

Performed by a female ensemble, it also features field recordings by Geoff Sample and film footage by Daniel Warren. Away with the Birds is a re-imagining of the archives and vibrant lives of John Lorne Campbell and Margaret Fay Shaw, two of Scotland’s most important ethnomusicologists and the last Laird and Lady of the island. Between them they helped to rescue vast quantities of oral tradition from oblivion.

Away with the Birds runs as part of the Cultural Programme for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games celebrating the best of music from Scotland and the Commonwealth, encompassing classical, traditional, folk, contemporary, indie, and fusion. Chemikal Underground also curates The East End Social, a series of music events taking place in the East End of Glasgow.

Anamchara – Songs of Friendship from Scottish Opera, hosted by the Theatre Royal in Glasgow in July features a libretto by award-winning writer Alexander McCall Smith in a new family opera based on themes of friendship and the ties that bind people together. New Music Biennial 2014 sees the creation of 20 new pieces of music inspired by international collaborations and ideas. Tuulikki’s Away with the Birds will round off this programme of inspirational music and performance and will be performed on 29 and 30 August.

To see Hanna Tuulikki’s work visit www.hannatuulikki.org.

For more information about the Cultural Programme visit www.creativescotland.com and www.glasgow2014.com.

Credits
1. Hanna Tuulikki, Away with the Birds (Air falbh leis na h-eòin). Courtesy of the artist.