Nathan features alongside 14 other composers from across the UK, as part of the Isolation Songbook released today on Delphian Records

Following its successful premiere in July, the Isolation Songbook will soon be released on Delphian Records. Originally conceived as an open call-for-scores to composers and lyricists to respond creatively to lockdown, the resulting 15 new songs are by turns witty and melancholic, brash and joyful, and are ultimately a positive and creative response to 2020.

Marking the 1st anniversary of UK's national lockdown, the album is released today (26 March 2021), so you can purchase your copy now: https://www.delphianrecords.com/products/isolation-songbook

Project overview

The feeling which many of us experienced in spring 2020 as, country by country, the world went into lockdown – a sense of life gone into standstill – was especially acute for musicians, deprived suddenly of both their livelihoods and the human connections that give their work meaning.

For singers Helen Charlston and Michael Craddock, it was not only their art that they could no longer express publicly: they had been due to marry in April. Forced like so many to put plans of any kind on hold, Helen began to find ways of redirecting her creative energies. She wrote a poem for Michael to mark their postponed wedding date, and the composer Owain Park, a friend of the couple, set it to music.

Helen began to contact other composers and poets, and unexpectedly but quickly a project took shape that would both fill the empty time and bear witness to it. The project chimed with Delphian’s determination to maintain the flow of album releases while live music was in abeyance, and so – with music again proving its ability to build connections across physical distance – the Isolation Songbook swiftly found a home on disc; recorded during the summer relaxation of restrictions, its release marks the anniversary of the beginning of lockdown in the UK.

Disc information

Release Date: 26 March 2021
Catalogue No: DCD34253
Recorded: 3-5 September 2020, The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

Producer: Paul Baxter
Editor: Paul Baxter