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How the Arrow Flies

Commissioned by the Legacy Trust UK for the Derry/Londonderry Verbal Arts Centre’s ‘Comment-8’ project as part of Northern Ireland’s regional programming around the 2012 Olympics. Premiered 11 April 2011 at Banbridge Auditorium by Oliver Coates, Mark Chambers and Carolyn Jess-Cooke and featured on the “Comment-8” website: http://www.nolkaproperty.com/?page_id=103.

This 25’ collaborative work with writer Carolyn Jess-Cooke for duo, narrator and 4-channel sound responds to a brief to create a work influenced by an Olympic sport: in this instance, archery. The piece addresses the basic research question common to all the Cultural Olympiad commissions, namely, how to compose a work that engages with a sporting theme and communicate that influence within its musical construction and performance. This particular piece’s innovation lies in its multifaceted approach to this task, adopting a compositional strategy that simultaneously engages with the physical mechanics of the chosen sport as well as its broader connotations. Informed by several meetings with Ballyvally archery club, the solo cello at the heart of the work reflects the shared relationship that exists between archer and bow/arrow and musician and (strung) instrument featuring material developed from musical gestures that mirror the act of firing an arrow into a target. The cello also references several musical examples linked to the archery theme (overture from “Guillaume Tell”, PJ Harvey’s ‘Bows and Arrows’), specifically as a means of revisiting the notions of familiarity and disruption, particularly by engaging with/exploring the mechanics of live musical performance, that are a recurring theme in works by this composer. Meanwhile, the participating sporting group are themselves absorbed into the piece via a spatially diffused, electronic sound component that combines sound samples from their training sessions with cello gestures. This becomes the platform for a more conventional text setting of Jess-Cooke’s story of Archie, a blind but brilliant young archer, that further engages with the targeted sporting demographic and identified strategy of audience development. The inclusion of countertenor voice hints at a medieval quality to the music that reflects archery’s ancient heritage.