Deirdre Gribbin [b.1967]
Merrow Sang [2007]

Performed by the Liverpool Quartet
National Concert Hall, Dublin, 6th November 2022 (live audio recording)

Merrow (from Gaelic murúch) is the Irish Gaelic equivalent of the mermaid of other cultures. These beings are said to appear as human from the waist up but have the body of a fish from the waist down.

I was struck by the vivid description in this account from Fairy Tales of the Irish Peasantry describing the burial of one of The Cantillon family of Balyheigh whose family burial ground had been sunken in the sea off the coast of Cork. As was tradition after a death, the coffin was laid next to the water. A mourner hiding behind the rocks recounted. It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking into the sea, when I heard the sound of many voices, which gradually became stronger, above the heavy and monotonous roll of the waves. I could distinguish a Keen, the notes of which rose and fell with the heaving of the water, whose deep murmur mingled with and supported the strain. The Keen grew louder and louder, and seemed to approach the beach, and then fell into a wail. As it ended I beheld a number of strange and, in the dim light, mysterious-looking figures emerge from the sea, and surround the coffin, which they prepared to launch into the water.

Also it has been recounted that merrow-maidens were reputed to lure young men to follow them beneath the waves. Sometimes they were said to leave their outer skins behind, to assume others more magical and beautiful. Merrow music is often heard coming from beneath the waves.

There is something very magical about these images and in this quartet Merrow Sang, I wanted to create webs of sound, almost like shades of the sea or water from which music emerges which is very strong, is half-heard and then vanishes transforming in a new skin. The real-time of the music is stretched and distorted as if caught in the clutch of a wave before floating to the watery surface.  

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Deirdre Gribbin was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

She was an award winner in the 2003 UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers with her work Empire States, and won a prestigious Arts Foundation Award for her first opera Hey Persephone! which had an acclaimed run at the Aldeburgh/Almeida Opera Festival.

Her music has been performed worldwide including The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, UKwithNY Festival featured in The New York Times and The National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.

She works extensively with theatre, film and dance. The Dark Gene featuring her music collaboration with scientist Sarah Teichmann was a finalist in the 2016 Berlinale Film Festival. She has written music for British Academy award-winning film My Kingdom starring Richard Harris as well as a number of commissions for BBC Radio 3 with director Lou Stein. She is a Fulbirght, Churchill and Leverhulme Fellow and has presented her music and science research at the EU Innovations Festival 2015. She has been developing music-based motivational healthcare apps in association with Holland Bloorview Kids Hospital, Toronto, Canada. She is artistic director of Venus Blazing Music Theatre Trust develoing programmes for young people with learning disabilities.          

Commissions include works for National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, The Ulster Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and performances by the London Philharmonia (Music of Today series at The Royal Festival Hall) and pianist Imogen Cooper and Venus Blazing which will tour the UK in the Spring 2005 with violinist Ernst Kovacic, Britten Sinfonia conducted by Pierre Andre, with lighting by Bruce Springsteen's lighting designer Jeff Ravitz and directed by Lou Stein.