Rohan Harron
Psychotia [2020]

Performed by the Solas Quartet
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, 12th March 2023

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

Psychotia was first written for a project led by the Ligeti Quartet and the first version of the piece was recorded by them during the March 2020 Lockdown. However, it has continued to develop since then. The piece stemmed from the very first idea that is heard, the tritone quavers in the cello. I was fascinated by how tritones and diminished 7th chords could be used to imply a range of different harmonies and have explored that throughout the piece. The piece has a tense and atmospheric opening; as I was writing I imagined an intensity across the room as the first eight tritones are played; the audience on the edge of their seats. The cello part is the heartbeat of this piece and I have played around a lot with how the expectation of how the listener begins to hear the continuity of the heartbeat beneath the other parts. I wanted the whole piece to sound alive, as if it was a wild beast and you were trying to predict its next move, you cannot guess what will come next in the piece. Rohan Harron

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Born in Yorkshire, Rohan Harron is a violinist and composer, currently studying at RIAM. As a performer, he has been a featured young artist with Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble, participated in the West Cork Chamber Music’s Fringe Festival and is the co-founder of the contemporary music ensemble ‘Outside the Lines’. As a composer, he was the winner of the Milligan Fox Medal for his choral setting of ‘Weile, Weile, Weile’ for upper voices and also commissioned by Sing Ireland to write for the Irish Youth Training Choir as part of their ‘Unspoken Words, Unheard Voices’ project. In late 2023 was commissioned by Yorkshire Philharmonic Choir to write a string orchestra piece ‘From Dawn to Dusk’ to accompany Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass and his string quartet ‘Psychotia’, was performed by the Solas Quartet on their 2023 Irish tour and also at the National Concert Hall’s ‘Migrations’ String Quartet weekend in 2024.