"Spring Leaves"
 This easy flute album depicts the progress of Spring: ‘Echoes
of Winter’, ‘March: In like a lion…’ and ‘May
Bells’ are among the six pieces. Specially commissioned
by the Contemporary Music Centre.
Purchase this at the Comtemporary
Music Centre |
"Piano Album II"
 This
is CMC’s second collection of test pieces specially commissioned
by the 1997 Guardian Dublin International Piano Competition with
funds provided by The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.
John Kinsella’s pianistic meditation, Reflection II, contrasts
with Kevin Volans’ energetic March. Raymond Deane’s
Chorale (After-pieces V) veers between austere minimalism and
frenetic bravura, while Fergus Johnston’s The Oul’ Winda
Rag was designed to give a ‘contemporary sparkle’,
as the composer put it, to the predominantly nineteenth-century
programmes to be expected from the competitors.
Purchase this at the Comtemporary
Music Centre |
"Avatars"
Avatar is a Sanskrit word meaning, variously, a 'passing down',
'an embodiment' and 'a visible manifestation of an abstract form'.
In this powerful work, the abstract forms are three note-rows
that are mined for their intervallic content. At the end, a quote
from a Hugo Wolf song reminds us that 'all that comes to pass
must end'.
Purchase this at the Comtemporary
Music Centre |
"Seachanges"
Raymond Deane’s Seachanges (with Danse
Macabre) is the first work in his Macabre Trilogy. Together
with Catacombs (1994) and Marche Oubliée (1996), the
three pieces deal lightheartedly with the theme of death. Seachanges
has been selected as a set work for the school Leaving Certificate
music examination in Ireland. The composer writes: ‘This
piece is based on a short melody that came while walking on
the beach at Ardtrasna, County Sligo, and that returned to
haunt me a year later on a very different beach at Huatulco,
on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The piece is informed throughout
by this extreme contrast, and by my reactions to the grotesque
and gaudy morbidity characteristic of Mexican iconography.
The word 'seachanges' was suggested both by the Atlantic/Pacific
aspect, and by Shakespeare's Full fathom five my father lies…,
thus linking up with the theme of death. The use of marimba
and strummed stringed instruments evokes the Mexican 'mariachi'
band.’ Commissioned by Concorde with funds provided by
The School of Irish Studies and The Arts Council/An Chomhairle
Ealaíon.
Purchase this at the Comtemporary
Music Centre |
"Birds and Beasts"
Suite for Violin and Piano.
Children's Pieces
by Raymond Deane.
line drawings by Ciarán
Lennon.
Published by Dedalus Press.
Available for Reference at Comtemporary
Music Centre |
"Annaghmato"
A 1' piano piece in honour
of
the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (August 2006).
Free PDF Download 
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