Land of the Big Sky

A few shots taken on a beautiful day, heading South across the Ord of Caithness, better known as the Causeway ("Cazzie") mire. There were stunning views across the Flow country towards the hills to the south of the county- Morven, Scaraben and Maiden Pap- and also across to Ben Griam Mor, Ben Griam Beag and Ben Klibreck in the Straths of Sutherland. A now-familiar feature of the Caithness landscape are the plethora of wind turbines dotted around the area- the largest farm is based by the roadside on the Causewaymire. 

The trip up and down the A9 has been a recurring necessity over the last 30 years (or so) of my life....

I have always been something of a sky gazer - the sparsity of the landscape can often move the eyes upwards: even on the thousands of miles of frequent trips up and "doon 'e road" I am never bored looking at the myriad of cloud formations and ever-changing colours.
This led me to start working upon Cirrus Loops - a piece for  a flexible ensemble, which aims to evoke the varying strata and constant movement of the clouds around the Flow Country.
The piece is inspired structurally by Terry Riley's (http://terryriley.net/biography.htm) seminal minimalist work,  In C : players are given a series of 8-bar melodic cells which can be played in any sequence, register or frequency. These are underpinned by a looped bass ostinato. Although this piece could work well in a purely sequenced electronic format, I wanted to try it out in a live setting with a mixed-instrument ensemble. This allows each individual player their own creative input - the piece, like the sky, should never appear the same way twice.
"Take One" can be heard below:

https://soundcloud.com/morag-currie-342215588/cirrus-loops

Band : violin/viola- Morag; accordion- Grant MacFarlane; piano- Stuart Taylor; bass and acoustic guitar; Andrew Herrington