The “Breton Suite Montagne” traditional bagpipe music began by masquerading as part of the preshow music in the stereo speaker pair upstage. It then slowly increased in volume and crept around the audience until they were engulfed in the sound of the pipes. This served as a sort of “gathering of the clans,” a calling together for the opening of the show. This piece consists of seven separate edit points to maintain musicality while fitting into a smaller time window.

     Michael has five monologues, all as a grown man recalling his youth. I underscored all of them to give a feeling of otherness, three with looped edits of different sections of “The Women of Ireland” by Celtic band “The Chieftains”. The first two sections were different arrangements of traditional instrumentation. The original recording (3) also had a heavily orchestrated ending that made for great curtain music.

  One of Michael's monologues coincided with his uncle having a flashback to when he was a Catholic missionary in Africa. As much of the symbolism of the play was drawing a parallel between the two cultures and religions, I used the sounds of an African tribal ceremony to underscore this one. Only the memory monologues were underscored to contrast the time set of the rest of the play.

Lughnasa Home

The Monologues

The Imaginary Boy Sound

Outside Ambience

Marconi

This was also the debut of Professor Steve M. Zapytowski and my collaborative design for an 8 channel surround system in Wright-Curtis Theatre. For you techies who like such things, click on the links below.