‘Where the Birds Sing’, composed by Grace Evangeline Mason, had its Northern Ireland premier last week in St Anne’s Cathedral.
The piece is formally dedicated to all those touched by Northern Ireland’s Troubles. It is intended as a form of acknowledgement that can be used in a number of public settings, especially faith-based contexts.
Ahead of the premier, I took part in a conversation on BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence (3 April) with Andrew Sloan, Chief Executive Officer of CVSNI. The piece also featured an interview with Mason and portions of the four-minute composition. (You can listen below.)
We discussed the power and potential of music in facilitating the expression of emotions, providing comfort, contributing to healing, and inspiring hope. I drew on examples from my own research for my book, Considering Grace: Presbyterians and the Troubles.
Mason was inspired by Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘Quiet Spring’, and its trajectory from darkness to light. The first stanza of the poem is:
Gone were but the Winter,
Come were but the Spring,
I would go to a covert
Where the birds sing;
Recognition is an important aspect of how societies deal with the past. If used and adapted in public settings, ‘Where the Birds Sing’ could provide some victims with some measure of acknowledgement of their suffering.
Ideally, dealing with the past should include a variety robust mechanisms that facilitate the uncovering of truth and the pursuit of justice, which may involve truth commissions, prosecutions or reparations.
Northern Ireland has not had a joined-up process for dealing with the past; and it increasingly looks like the latest recommendations from the Stormont House Agreement will not be implemented.
“We need to give the concept of acknowledgement some space from truth and justice measures. … Undoubtedly, those [truth and justice] measures are exactly what acknowledgement means to some people. However, our research team, through the course of their work, have heard from many people affected by the conflict who have chosen not to pursue those avenues but do still wish to have recognition of the hurt or harm they experienced, and also the resilience many have grown in their journey towards healing.”
“I thought the piece was really powerful and really moving. The thing with organ music for anyone who has been caught up in a bomb, is that hearing is often affected and so you can really feel this music as opposed to just hearing it. I’m just really thankful to have been invited …”
(Images: Grace Evangeline Mason at the Southwark Cathedral performance; and the Northern Ireland premier of ‘Where the Birds Sing’ at St Anne’s Cathedral, which was attended by representatives from churches and other faith-based groups. Both images sourced on Facebook.)