Banshees
Guitar quartet or guitar ensemble
- Duration
- 3½ min
- Level
- Beginning to intermediate
- Premiere
- Guitar Society of Northern Ireland, conducted by Matthew McAllister, Ards International Guitar Festival, 2026
- Commissioned by
- Guitar Society of Northern Ireland
- Publisher
- Sacred Black Publications, SBP 2507
$12PDF score and parts
Buy the scoreAbout the music
Magical creatures are resilient. They possess a versatile nature that allows them to be one thing in one story and something else in another. In some settings, a Banshee is a shrieking messenger of death. In other, more gentle settings, the Banshee is a singing fairy, preoccupied with combing her hair.
The Banshees of my piece float in and out of the fairy realm. They are found around tumuli, singing individual melodies until they converge and then begin to sing in unison. If they are harbingers of anything, we can’t know what it is until after they are gone, so we may as well enjoy their song while they visit us in this fleeting moment.
Watch and listen
Sample pages
Look through the writing before you buy. For a full perusal copy, get in touch.
Performances
- — Classical Guitar Retreat Ensemble, Roberto Kuhn Versluys, conductor, Classical Guitar Retreat, St Andrews, Scotland · Video
- — Glendale Guitar Orchestra, Chuck Hulihan, director, GCC Performing Arts Center, Glendale, AZ · Video
- — Classical Guitar Society of Northern Ireland Ensemble, Matthew McAllister, conductor, 30th Ards International Guitar Festival, Newtownards, Northern Ireland · Video
Related works
- Winter Was Hard Four guitars or guitar ensemble
- The Promise of Something New Four guitars or guitar ensemble