Scottish composer and musician Hilary de Vries is releasing her new album The Knockbain Road on Oct. 8, available as a CD and in digital format via Bandcamp.
The Knockbain Road features a set of original compositions for wire-strung clarsach, inspired by Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s epic poem The Birlinn of Clanranald. Despite not knowing Gaelic, de Vries found herself fascinated by the shape of the poetry in the original language, which was printed alongside the English translation. “Certain lines jumped out at me and I would write a piece of music to each one,” de Vries says. “I didn’t know what the words meant, but I couldn’t have written the music without them.”
The titles of several tracks on the album represent scenes from nature in the Scottish Highlands: “low over the bay,” “the grey cairn,” “golden birches,” and “a mass of geese.” To complement the nature theme in her compositions, de Vries says she chose to record the album outdoors, “letting the sound of birds and of the wind rising and falling weave in and out of the music.”
To learn more about de Vries, visit her website.
