THE Pilgrim

THE PILGRIM

SUITE FOR CELTIC SOLOISTS AND ORCHESTRA

'The Pilgrim' was commissioned in 1982 by the Lorient Interceltic Festival for the purpose of placing traditional folk musicians representative of seven Celtic regions in the setting of the festival's symphony orchestra. This 90 minute suite contains some of Shaun Davey's most beautiful and uplifting melodies. The songs for soloists and choirs are in Irish, Scots Gallic, Welsh and Breton, with one exception; the powerful St Patrick's prayer, The Deer's Cry translated into english by Kuno Meyer. The songs are combined with a series of new tunes for  traditional Celtic instruments eg bombarde, biniou, gaita, uilleann pipes and harp; these include thrilling climaxes created by pipeband, bagade.and orchestra. The suite is constructed as a journey along the Western seaboard of Celtic Europe during the early medieval period when Christianity spread Eastwards from the Celtic church. Episodes are linked by a  narrator who reads from Christian and secular poetry  selected from the period with Davey's Art Historian's eye. The suite in its first form made it's debut in 1983, was revised in 1990 for a performance in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, and revised again in 2000 for performance with Sir Ben Kingsley in the narrator's role in Dublin.Add text

rita connolly sings A'Ghrian at the STADE de france

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