Pàdruig Morrison

Research Assistant in Specialist Music Collection (New Traditional School)

  • Celtic & Scottish Studies
  • School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Contact details

Availability

  • Usual working days are Mondays and Tuesdays

Biography

Background

Pàdruig has recently completed his PhD in Composition at Maynooth University, and is currently Research Assistant in Specialist Music Collection (New Traditional School) in the department of Celtic and Scottish Studies. His doctoral research looked at the confluence of Scottish traditional music and contemporary classical composition, both in Scottish composition and applied within his own compositional output. He received a full John & Pat Hume Doctoral Award scholarship. 

The thesis is entitled 'Finding a Contemporary Voice for Gaelic Art Music in Scotland' and contained a 2-hour long portfolio of 11 original works.

Pàdruig is an active professional performer, performing new and old traditional repertoire, with a deep inherited knowledge of the Gaelic tradition from an upbringing in, and continued part of, the culture of the Outer Hebrides. He was a finalist in the 2020 BBC Radio Scotland Young Musician of the Year, and received a Celtic Connections New Voices commission in that same year. Pàdruig has also written eight soundtracks for films of varying lengths. 

He regularly performs with Beinn Lee, performing around Scotland at festivals such as Heb Celt, Tiree Music Festival, and Celtic Connections, and has performed as far afield as Belgium. This is in addition to being in demand as a soloist and regularly leading musical projects with a variety of musicians and singers such as a recent Ceòl is Craic commission 'Tùsanaich | Indigenous' performed at the CCA in Glasgow. Other recent highlights include a commission from the St Magnus International Festival to write a work for solo cello and a commission from Scotland's newest string ensemble, Thirteen North, which resulting in a new work entitled 'These Highland Glens Once Danced' exploring the confluence of traditional music blas and contemporary string writing, as well as engaging in issues around contemporary perceptions of the Scottish Highlands and the Highland Clearances.

 

Qualifications

PhD Maynooth University

MA Maynooth University

BMus Edinburgh University

Responsibilities & affiliations

Research Assistant in Specialist Music Collection (New Traditional School)

Research summary

Contemporary traditional music practice, contemporary Scottish composition, traditional music, Gaelic, oral culture, Gaelic Psalm Singing

Papers delivered

  • ‘Capturing the Blas: explorations in notating the feeling and flavour of traditional music in the scores of contemporary compositions works Gluasad I, II & III.’ British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE) and Royal Musical Association (RMA) Research Students' Conference 2023 'Borderlands', 11.01.23.

  • ‘Finding a Voice for Gaelic Art Music: Scottish Contemporary Composition and the influence of Traditional Music.’ The Motherland Resurrected: Manifestations of Nationalism in Music Since the End of the ‘Short Twentieth Century’, University of Cambridge (Zoom), 22.07.21.

  • ‘Reconsidering the impact of Presbyterianism on the musico-poetic culture of North Uist in the mid Twentieth Century’ Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig, Univeristy of Edinburgh, 29.08.18.

  • Tùsanaich | Indigenous. 80-minute commission of new Gaelic songs and tunes exploring the connection of Gaels with the land and the environment, voicing and provoking discussion around indigeneity, land rights, climate change, and ecosystems. CCA, Glasgow: 23.09.23. 
  • These Highland Glens Once Danced. Thirteen North performance in St Lukes, Glasgow: 19.06.23.
  • Fadhail, for solo cello. Commission from St Magnus International Festival premiered 19.06.23.
  • Gluasad series. 3 works exploring innate aspects of traditional Gaelic music for solo instruments. Gluasad II performed by Catriona Price at the 2022 Scots Fiddle Festival.
  • Dospag, for Alto flute and tape. Performed 07.04.22 by Swiss-American flautist Chelsea Czuchra.
  • Òran an Ròin. Arrangement of an old Gaelic song for Baritone and piano. Performed by 09.12.22 by Jamie MacDougall + Scott Mitchell.
  • Fead na Feadaig (2021). Piobaireachd based wind quintet composition for the Cassiopeia Wind Quintet.
  • New Voices Commission from Celtic Connections (2020). 50 minutes of music, about Gaelic and its future.
  • Collaboration with Ceòl is Craic and the Glasgow Improvisors Orchestra for their Ocaidich! | Improvise! concert, writing new Gaelic songs and tunes, including a graphic scored work Clò inspired by Harris Tweed weaving and Gaelic Psalm Singing.
  • Fragile Distance (2020), written for marimba. Selected for the Red Note Ensemble Digital Noisy Night.
  • An Tàillear anns an Eaglais Tathaichte (2020) workshopped and performed by Loadbang Ensemble (USA). A new 12-minute composition for Baritone, C Trumpet, Trombone, and Bb Bass Clarinet, setting the story , taken from the ethnographic recording of Peter Morrison (my grandfather) in 1975.
  • Caoin Leth Challtach (2019) performed by the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble (Belfast, Northern Ireland) and won the 2019 Peter Rosser Composition Competition.  
This article was published on