Michael Doherty [1983]
Ode to Punta Nati [2025]

Performed by the Gealán Quartet
Cahir Castle, 12th September 2025

Score and parts available from the composer at michaeldohertymusic@gmail.com

Punta Nati is the northwesternmost point of Menorca. The landscape is barren and lunar but its history is rich, rooted in protection. It lies on a rocky medieval path that encircles the island, once patrolled by sentries on horseback. Beyond, a lighthouse rises up out of the crag, built centuries later to put an end to the shipwrecks that once plagued Menorca’s north coast. On either side of the lighthouse lie sets of stone bunkers, assembled later still during the Spanish Civil War and now deserted, squatting on the island’s edge like little alien fortresses.

There aren’t many visitors to this otherworldly outpost but there are a few, and in their ones and twos they hike, run and cycle up the lonely road north from Ciutadella to make their secret pilgrimage. Upon arrival, the protections assembled here work together to achieve something unthinkable: they mute entirely the noise of the sea below; so while the views at Punta Nati will stagger you, the silence will deafen you.

Only the pilgrims can say what they find in this place: it could be rest, strength, a past, a future, gratitude or wonder. I found all of those…and then I found this piece.

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A first class honours graduate of the RNCM, Michael Doherty’s first post was as an assistant composer to the Oscar-winning Gabriel Yared in 2008. From there, he has built a reputation as a composer and orchestrator for films, documentaries and video games, writing for, among other clients, the BBC, Universal, Channel 4, and Warner Bros. . In recent years he has orchestrated for an Oscar-nominated film (Björn Runge’s The Wife, 2017) and he orchestrates regularly for other composers and bands, including the Ivor Novello-winning Ian Livingstone and Bafta-winning Jocelyn Pook.

Michael continues to write for the concert hall too, and recent commissions have seen his work premiered internationally in St. Martin In The Fields, the Concertgebouw and the Mozarteum. He maintains close ties with the music industry in Spain and his 2021 piece, Concertino On Albanian Themes, was recently recorded on the Phonoclassical label by Albanian virtuoso Smerald Spahia and Academia 1830 in Mallorca. Upcoming commissions include collaborations with world-renowned guitarist Laura Young, pianist Artur Pereira, and the Orquestra Simfònica De Les Illes Balears.