Composer Rachel Holstead is in Antarctica at present recording material for a commission.

Following in the footsteps of fellow Kerry person Tom Crean, the great Irishman who accompanied the explorer Shackleton on his polar expeditions, Holstead is currently on a two-week voyage bound for the Antarctic Peninsula.

The trip arose out of a commission from the Tom Crean Society to write a large-scale work celebrating his memory. Departing Tierra del Fuego on January 23, the group headed out into the Beagle Channel on board the vessel M.V. Polar Star to explore the peninsula and surrounding islands.

Holstead is using the journey to make source recordings for the composition, a large-scale work for orchestra and tape. Following this trip, she travels to the other side of the globe to take up a two-month residency in the Leighton Studios, Banff, Canada, to work on another piece for the Irish Chamber Orchestra. This residency is funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Reporting by email from the ship, Rachel says that although unable to land on Elephant Island, where Shackleton’s men were marooned, a wealth of amazing wildlife is visible -- birds such as chinstrap penguins, wandering albatrosses, cape petrels, snowy sheathbills and great southern petrels. Fur seals and whales -- minke and humpback among them -- are also to be seen. “I'm hoping my microphone picked up the sound of an enormous glacier calving into the bay!”, she says.

Posted: 31 January 2006