Music
Christine's poetry has occasionally inspired music.
Gemma McGregor - Orkney Composer
Gemma composed a piece of music - Ahint a Wheeshtit Chapel - based on Christine's Shaetlan poem Soondscapes. It was part of an event - Through All the Heavens of Ice - which celebrated Gemma's compositions. Her music was performed by the Edinburgh Quartet and took place in Kirkwall in November 2022.
Following on this success, Gemma and Christine collaborated on a more ambitious piece, Oceans Shifting Tides. It comprised seven poems, all sea-themed, each with a specific musical response and a link piece to the next poem. Played by The Outwith Ensemble, it was premiered at The WayWord Festival in Aberdeen in September 2023.
Tommy Smith and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra
Christine was one of four poets commissioned by Tommy Smith and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra to write poems linked to ancient folklore set in the Western Isles. The final composition, Tales of the Tribe, includes her poem Schiehallion - a beautiful Caledonian Fairy Queen. You can hear it below.
Michael Cuddigan Trust
The Michael Cuddigan Trust commissioned a musical response to Christine's art-poetry collaboration, Another Time, Another Place in 2021. A song cycle inspired by image and word was composed by Alasdair Spratt, Suzanne Parry and Aileen Sweeney with instrumental performances by Jan Schmolck, Jean Johnson, Patrick Broderick and soprano Katherine Broderick.
Neil Georgeson - Composer and Pianist
Christine's poem Starn Sign was the inspiration for a song by Shetland composer Neil Georgeson. It was premiered at Shetland Arts' 2016-17 Classical Season concert on 2nd December 2016 in Mareel, Lerwick, with soprano Anna Dennis.
"While there was an excellent, whimsical selection pieces by Britten, and a variety of Mussorgsky Nursery songs, the absolute highlight of the second half was Neil's own composition, A Starn Sign. This intriguing number was on a Christine De Luca poem in Shetland dialect set to music. Anna had so far managed to sing in German, French, Russian and English with excellent pronunciation in all of them, and did not let Shetland down with a fantastic performance that covered the entire length and breadth of her range, with a number of impressive vocal flourishes.
Neil, for his part, was leaning inside the guts of the piano, gently playing the strings themselves with soft-headed percussion mallets, creating a soft, low, ethereal sound that wasn't providing musical accompaniment so much as it was creating a stirring, otherworldly atmosphere. He soon switched to gently, strumming the piano strings like a horizontal harp, before playing conventionally for the last little bit. Distinctive but incredibly effective."Review taken from Shetland News
Tommy Smith and Karma - Musicians
Following a commission (along with Shetland poet Alex Cluness) from saxophonist and professor of music at the Conservatoire in Glasgow,
Tommy Smith, Christine wrote six poems tracing some of Shetland's history. Tommy then composed jazz pieces based on each of the poems. Together with Tommy's band, Karma, they premiered Sea Treeds at the 2015 Shetland Jazz Festival and followed this up with two further events: the 2015 Edinburgh Jazz Festival and in March 2016 at Stanza International Poetry Festival in St Andrews. Karma comprises Paul Harrison (piano and keyboards), Alyn Cosker (percussion) and Kevin Glasgow (bass guitar).
Catriona Macdonald - Musician
Catriona Macdonald is a Shetland traditional fiddler and Head of Performance at Newcastle University. Christine was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Book Festival to prepare a translation into Shetlandic of some piece of literature which could engage an audience for at least an hour at the 2015 festival. She chose four of the tales from the Finnish folk epic Kalevala. Christine realised some musical interpretation would provide colour and interest and was delighted that Catriona took up the challenge to join her in the commission. The piece was also repeated in August 2016 at Shetland's Fiddle Frenzy.
Fridarey - Musicians
Fridarey hail from Fair Isle. They are singer/songwriters and have recently set one of Christine's poems, A Joy to Behold, to music.
Peter Davis - Musician
Peter set some of the haiku in Earth, air, water, fire to music. It was sung by Andy Ross on 29th of June 2009 as an opener for a Norwegian choir.
Fiona Rutherford - Music Student
Fiona composed pieces for a small ensemble including clarsach to put with three of Christine's poems.