The Pilgrim is a live album by the composer

Shaun Davey Shaun Davey (born 18 January 1948) is an Irish composer. Early years Shaun Davey was born in Belfast in 1948 and attended Rockport School in County Down. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in the history of Art in 1971. He then took a ...

. It was recorded at

Festival Interceltique de Lorient __NOTOC__ The (French), Emvod Ar Gelted An Oriant (Breton) or Inter-Celtic Festival of Lorient in English, is an annual Celtic festival, located in the city of Lorient, Brittany, France. It was founded in 1971 by . This annual festival takes ...

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Glasgow Royal Concert Hall is a concert and arts venue located in Glasgow, Scotland. It is owned by Glasgow City Council and operated by Glasgow Life, an agency of Glasgow City Council, which also runs Glasgow's City Halls and Old Fruitmarket v ...

Background

In 1983, following the successful performance of Shaun Davey's work

The Brendan Voyage ''The Brendan Voyage'' was Shaun Davey's first major orchestral suite, composed for uilleann pipes played by Liam O'Flynn. It depicts Tim Severin’s adventure in reconstructing Saint Brendan’s 6th century Atlantic crossing to America. It featu ...

the previous year, The

commissioned Davey to compose The Lorient Festival Suite for orchestra and Celtic soloists representing the seven Celtic countries or regions (Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Galicia) and it was a recording of this concert that was released, on vinyl, in the same year by

Tara Music Tara Music (formerly known as Tara Records) has been regarded for many years as one of the leading traditional Irish music recording companies. The label was set up by Jack Fitzgerald and John Cook in the early 1970s. Their first release was the ...

under the title of ''The Pilgrim''. Despite the success of the initial performance and subsequent LP release Davey realised that the work needed a thread to hold it together. It was not until 1990, when Davey was approached by

to stage The Pilgrim in Glasgow to mark the passing of the mantle of European City of Culture from Glasgow to Dublin, that he got the chance to address some of these problems. With the commitment to a CD release from

, he was in a position to add some new pieces (and delete others). He introduced the concept of a journey by St. Colum Cille through the Celtic countries which provided the missing thread from the earlier work. This concept was further strengthened by the introduction of a narrator between the musical pieces.

Recording

The current CD release is a combination of remixed recordings from the original Lorient concert as well as the Glasgow concert. With a number of performances scheduled for the piece in the millennium year, Shaun took the opportunity to revise and extend the suite. As the overall length of the suite was now beyond that of a conventional CD, the additional tracks were on a later release 'May We Never Have To Goodbye' also on the

label.

Tracks

# Himlico's Map; Colm Cille Leaves Derry. # Gair Na Gairbe # A Walk In The Ocean # The Pilgrim # Colum Cille's Farewell to Ireland # The Land of The Picts # Iona # Briochan and Columba # Storm at Sea # A White Wave Foams Over # Ymadawiad Arthur # St. Manchan's Prayer # Samson Peccator Episcopus # St. Matthews Point # Danse Plin # Bal Plin # Dance An Dro # Santiago # Vigo # The Deer's Cry # God Be With Me # A`Ghrian'

Musicians

*Conductors : Noel Kelehan / Iain Sutherland *Orchestras : The Lorient Festival Orchestra / The Glasgow Philharmonic Orchestra *Soloists;

Rita Connolly Rita Connolly is a singer who has lived and worked in Ireland. She is primarily known for her work with composer Shaun Davey who wrote a song cycle for her called ''Granuaile'' based on the 16th-century pirate queen Gráinne O'Malley as well as ...

& Iarla O'Lionaird (vocals)

Liam O'Flynn Liam Óg O'Flynn ( ga, Liam Ó Floinn, 15 September 1945 – 14 March 2018) was an Irish uilleann piper and Irish traditional musician. In addition to a solo career and as a member of Planxty, O'Flynn recorded with: Christy Moore, Dónal Lun ...

uilleann pipes The uilleann pipes ( or , ) are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Earlier known in English as "union pipes", their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms (literally, "pipes of the elbow"), from their ...

, Josik Allot & Bernard Pichard Bombardes, Pipe Major Tom Anderson (Scottish pipes), Helen Davies (Celtic harp), Carlos Real Rodreguez, Vincente Manuel Tunas. *Narrator :

Mick Lally Mick is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Michael. Because of its popularity in Ireland, it is often used in England as a derogatory term for an Irish person or a person of Irish descent. In Australia the meaning broaden ...

. *Choirs : Cord Gord' rer Garth' Kerensa, An Tryskell, The City of Glasgow Chorus. *Pipebands : Wallacestone Pipeband. City of Glasgow Pipes and Drums.

References

Record Label Catalogue 2010

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pilgrim, The 1983 live albums Shaun Davey albums