Madrigirls is a fantastic women’s choir in Glasgow, founded and directed by Katy Lavinia Cooper, and really enjoyed having the opportunity to write a new piece for their 2020 Advent Concert, to help celebrate their 20th anniversary. Due to covid the concert couldn’t take place in person, but I am so pleased that they were able to find a beautiful way to present it online! (You should really watch the whole thing, but if you are looking for my piece specifically, it’s at 1:02:40ish.)
Programme note:
My Wren-King uses lyrics from the St Stephen’s Day tradition of hunting the wren, which is celebrated in various different ways in Ireland, the UK and other Celtic-influenced parts of Europe, and even in some parts of Canada, including Nova Scotia where I am from (though I have never seen it). Traditionally people would kill a wren and bring it from door to door asking for change, though people now use toy wrens, fortunately! There are a variety of theories about the origin of the custom, but it is thought to date from pre-Christian times, or to be a Christianization of Celtic and/or Norse
customs, perhaps replacing a solstice sacrifice. I myself come from a mixed religious background, and although I’m an enthusiastic celebrator of Christmas, I’m not Christian: I thus find myself particularly interested in these customs of somewhat mysterious, mixed origins, associated with the
celebration of Christmas, but not actually connected to the Christmas story itself. I feel a further connection with wren mythology because many folk stories that are told about the wren in Europe have been transposed onto one of my favourite birds, the hermit thrush, when told in North America.
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