When Claire M Singer was told about an organ in Forgue Kirk, close to the Aberdeenshire village where she was brought up, it opened up a world of possibilities for the composer who also works as music director of the organ at Union Chapel in London. Drawing inspiration from her walks in the Cairngorms, the result is Saor, the first of a planned triptych of albums released on the experimentally inclined Touch label.
Having begun her musical life as a cellist and composition student, Singer fell for the organ after experimenting with stops and pedals in a way that saw her manipulating air rather than play the instrument in a conventional fashion. Rather than producing something wilfully arid or austere, there is an emotional warmth to Singer’s work on both Saor and her previous Touch releases that began in 2016 with Solas. This reflects her response to the source of her inspiration.
“The most natural thing for me to do when I get home is to get in the car and drive to Lochnagar and to Loch Muick and to just walk around,’ Singer says. “Being in that area, I just feel completely myself. For me, that has always been the fuel for me to survive. Obviously, that place, and the Cairngorms, and climbing just inspires me most of all.’
Tracks on Saor (pronounced Sieur, as in ‘Monsieur’) are named after Munros that Singer has climbed, with little interludes between exploring the mechanics of her instrument. The album’s title track, meanwhile, is a just shy of twenty-five minute epic that translates from Scottish Gaelic as ‘Free’.
This was a commission by arts and music charity, The Richard Thomas Foundation, and was recorded in one take at Orgelpark, the Amsterdam based concert hall for organists. With the centre containing numerous organs, Singer ran between five instruments to create the piece.
“I think I got my steps in that day,” she says of the experience in a place she describes as “Disneyland for organists.”
Singer is possibly best known to many for her soundtrack to Annabel Jankel’s 2018 film based on Fiona Shaw’s novel, Tell it to the Bees.
“It was probably the steepest learning curve of my life musically, just because I had to learn on the job, and also it was such a different kind of ballgame, because I'm such a long form composer, and then I was given thirty-two seconds. I'm usually just taking breath at this point.’
It is Saor, however, on which Singer literally pulls out all the stops.
“In my studio in London, all I've got on the walls are pictures of Munros, and photos that I've taken when I've been walking. I don't know what it is. It's just in me, and I feel like my music that comes out is completely informed by those experiences, and by those memories of being on top of them, looking out all by myself and feeling that feeling of being free. Which is why the album's called ‘Free’.’
Saor by Claire M Singer is released by Touch on CD and digitally on 3rdNovember. The album is launched at Orgelpark, Amsterdam, 11thNovember.
The List, November 2023
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