A large, rocky sea stack emerging from the water with fog or low clouds surrounding its peak.

SOAY

trad. Scottish Melody, arr. Beth Lewis

for voice, cello & live electronics

I have regularly collaborated with composer Beth Lewis and in this collaboration, we have blended folk vocals, extended cello techniques with looping and live audio manipulation to create a soundscape of St Kilda. Upon first hearing this melody I was immediately enchanted. The simplicity of it and the harmonic progressions took me to a peaceful and reflective place. Having worked with violinists, Simmy Singh and Patrick Rimes, they have both taught me so much about the musical language and techniques specific to folk.

 

The arrangement includes snippets of voices from the 1972 Thames TV documentary ‘Scotland, St Kilda, Interviews with the inhabitants. This arrangement aims to create the sound world of St Kilda and to allow the music of the island to sing once more.

In 1953, the island of St Kilda was evacuated. The islanders had to leave their culture and livelihoods behind. Through the diligent work of Fiona Pope and Trevor Morrison, and a stroke of luck, their songs survived. Morrison was later discovered playing these melodies whilst residing in a care home, these were heard by Fiona Pope who traced the centuries old folk tradition back to St Kilda. Before he died, the Scottish Festival Orchestra arranged and recorded many of the lost songs, producing an album titled ‘The Lost Songs of St Kilda’.

Map of the Hebrides, showing inner and outer Hebrides and other parts of Scotland with island names and surrounding bodies of water.

Building on this foundation, the next stage of this project looks towards Soay, one of the lesser-visited islands of the St Kilda, as a site for research and creative exploration. The future of this work lies not only in reimagining the fragments of cultural memory that survive, but in situating new music within the physical landscape itself. By recording and composing directly on the island, the project will capture the interplay of environment, memory, and sound, merging natural acoustics, field recordings, and live performance with the folk-inspired idioms already developed in collaboration. This will evolve into a concept album, a contemporary response to the legacy of St Kilda that allows the island’s history, voices, and silences to resonate in a new form. Through this process, the project continues the act of preservation and reinvention, ensuring that the spirit of the community and music is not only remembered but reimagined for the future.