Deutsche Grammophon releases Dustin O’Halloran’s new album, Silfur, which explores the shifting perspective of music through time and place in new pieces and reimagined earlier works. The album includes collaborations with American composer and multi-instrumentalist Bryan Senti, Icelandic cellist Gyða Valtýsdóttir and the Siggi String Quartet...

Speaking about the album, composer Dustin O'Halloran says: "Silfur is an exploration of the music of my past and how it reflects back to me now in the present. Evoking images of different moments, places and periods of my life, and rediscovering the pieces that have stayed with me. Sometimes we can only understand ourselves by looking back, and hopefully, finding the thread of who we are and who we have always been."

This new release of fifteen pieces (59 min, 56 sec) distills and expands upon the composer’s concepts of time, past and present, perceived through music. It comprises two new works – ‘Opus 56’ for solo piano and ‘Constellation No. 2’ for piano, cello and electronics – as well as new recordings of a selection of tracks from O’Halloran’s solo albums, including four new string arrangements.

If you listen closely you'll spot the occasional nod and wink to notable composers - the most obvious being 'Opus 55' and which feel like a spiritual successor to Debussy's 'Clair de Lune'.

It's a lovingly crafted collection of beautifully moving pieces. It's one that you'll play the hell out of now, and still come back in months and years to come.

10

Darren Rea