Water for Celtic fiddle, Irish bouzouki, three or more children's choirs and audience, was commissioned by Shallaway Children's Choir based in St. John's, Newfoundland for the Songbridge 2008 gathering in Copenhagen with funds from the Canada Council for the Arts. The idea of water as a theme for the piece and of all oceans of the world being one was Susan Knight's, the choir's director at the time and well known Canadian arts advocate. Her very strong feelings of place and the character of the terrain and the people of Newfoundland, necessitated that I compose the work in Newfoundland. The trip made possible by Susan's tireless efforts and the hospitality of Robert and Wanda Thompson and Mark and Sandra Dobbin, I spent ten days in the St. John's area recording and listening to folk Newfoundland musicians and the Shallaway choir in preparation for this composing project. I am particularly indebted to violin/fiddle player Alison Black and singer/bouzouki player Andrew Dale for giving me the recordings upon which I based my composition and to Kelly Walsh, the choir's new director, who "lend" me the choir for a day to experiment with extended vocal techniques and vocal simulations. Water was written during five short days, December 11-15, 2008 at Beachy Cove, Nf.
The work is based on two well known fiddle tunes by Emile Benoit, one of Newfoundland's prominent fiddlers, namely Velvet in the Wind and Kelly Russell's Reel. Since this was a piece for children, I intended from the start that (a) it should be for children, that is it should be something that felt like children created it and are having a great time performing and (b) it should have a very strong Newfoundland (Irish) flavour to it. It was less important to me that this would be a composer's statement although my own ideas about the world ultimately find their way into this piece like in the rest of my music. Finally, the Songbridge stipulations specify that the audience as a whole must be somehow accounted for in the composition, so there is a part for the audience as well, mostly simulations of oceans waves breaking on a beach or rocks and spoken fragments of the phrase "we are made of water", plus humming some basic harmonies.
