behind the notes: without from 'Morals + Interludes'
As part of the release of the Young Composer Scheme, Vol. 2 album on NMC Recordings Digital label, I am going ‘behind the notes’ of Morals + Interludes, and sharing its starting point and who or what inspired me.
There are were several parts at play in creating this series of short choral works featured on this album - Morals + Interludes - and I think it’s important to shine a light on the people who inspired each of the five choral works that make up this series.
Back in April 2020 (penny drops), like many, I was finding it difficult to find purpose, let alone create. After the crazed binge of social media in the hope that I would fall on something that would make me say “wow, I know EXACTLY what to do now”, I turned my back on it. The overwhelming sense that a million opinions, thoughts, feelings, concerns, experiences were just sitting behind my blank screen was too much. And this silent noise was even more present in this time of isolation and digitising our entire lives in light of social distancing; from the work we do to the socialising we need, to quite literally the only way many can communicate with one another – in this ‘chaos’ of the virtual. People, understandably, wanted to be heard.
However, I began to discover, as many did, that these enforced periods of isolation is also an important time for reflection. Self-reflection. Perhaps this is an essential moment of our lives for repose, as we quite literally live with our own thoughts and deal with not only the mundane but even the existential.
I thought, how about I take these two elements we are embracing/tackling at the moment - this reflection on the past/future and this concept that we have immortalised our lives digitally/virtually - and try and create something from it?
This was timed to perfection. I was in need of a starting point for my new work with the lovely and insanely talented singers of the 2019-20 National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Fellowship, and this realisation could be just that starting point to create something new. Something meaningful. I tasked the singers to send over any ‘virtual memories’ they felt would reflect a part of their lives that have meaning to them in any way. I suggested that it could be: “an old teenage confessional you once posted on YouTube; a home-video of you with family when you were young; a recorded conversation you may have had with a friend recently; or even a blooper/random vid you may have on your phone from a night out (I am sure there are way too many on Facebook of me in some club in Cardiff when I was at university).”
I waited…
v. without
The final choral work in this set was the hardest to write. Not for any other reason than the content matter of which it came from was so raw. In a year filled with much loss, not just the loss of many of our shared freedoms but the physical and heartbreaking loss of those close around us. It almost seemed crass to create something about this subject matter in a year of such loss.
However, it also proved to be healing. The inspiration here came from a place of real love. The love of unity. The love of communication. The love of togetherness. The love of family.
NYCGB Fellowship baritone, Laurence Padfield, sent me a few thoughts on Facebook Messenger (aptly whilst I was on my way to The Red House in Aldeburgh for a residency to work on exactly this work - the one time home of composer Benjamin Britten and partner, tenor Peter Pears). He explained how close his gargantuan family happen to be despite their size (approx. 100 cousins he quoted, so yes, massive). Full of different characters, different loves, different heights, different sizes, yet they come together. I couldn’t begin to imagine how surreal or even difficult it must feel for a family of this size to work remotely (imagine the Zoom family quizzes on a Sunday evening?!) This was accompanied with a few videos of family gatherings, some with boozy drinks, and some peaceful, as a group of his family walk up Carn Llidi (a hill east of St David's Head in Pembrokeshire, Wales). A few little snapshots into his life. Into his family.
Whenever we now see a group of people chatting, bunched closely together, or a massed event like a sports match or concert, we wince. “Remember when we could do that?”, we say. “Seems scary to think of that now!”, we’d say at the TV. “What would we do without them?'‘, we’d mutter.
During times of pain, of heartbreak, of isolation, what would we do without the people around us? Whether physically or virtually? Do they make us who we are? Do we make them who they are? Recent times have made us, often quite agonisingly, recognise those closest to us. Those who make us. Those who affect us. Those who love us, truly. If there is one silver-lining from the past year (and the coming year), it should be that we celebrate this discovery. We celebrate those who make us happy. We place love at the centre of everything we do.
In his Treatises on Government, Aristotle exclaims (obviously translated), “without society, without law, without family. Such a one must naturally be of a quarrelsome disposition, and as solitary as the birds.” Without society and without family, we are not at peace. We are not whole. It is what aligns us. It is what grounds us. Although I would now disagree with Aristotle (don’t @ me), as surely we would all strive to have the blissful freedoms that birds have.
without them,
without him,
without her,
without love.
without affection,
without warmth,
without a connection,
without holding your hand.
without them,
without him,
without her,
without love.
without society,
without law,
without family,
without you.
we are as solitary as the birds.
need more?
Please feel free to head over to the dedicated page for Morals +Interludes to find out more or listen to the whole album release.