Caught by the River

Voice of the Bird

26th August 2013

Away with the Birds, a taster from Away with the Birds on Vimeo.

As this project unfolds I’m finding it more and more fascinating…

Hanna Tuulikki’s Air falbh leis na h-eòin is a body of work exploring the mimesis of birds in Gaelic song. In 2014 it becomes a sited performance and installation, made for the Isle of Canna, as part of Culture 2014. It is created by an inter-disciplinary team of visual artists, musicians, textile artists, dancers, writers, sound recordists, ornithologists, conservationists and anthropologists.

Hanna’s vocal composition, Guth an Eòin | Voice of the Bird sits at the heart of the project. It’s written for a female vocal ensemble, reinterpreting archive, fragmenting and re-weaving extracts of Gaelic songs into an extended soundscape growing out of and responding to landscape. It explores the delicate nature of island-life, the co-existence of history and innovation, the relationships between bird, man and land.