stay away from clocks

National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Fellowship at The Elgar Room, Royal Albert Hall, London (UK); Date TBC

[Postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic]

Over recent years I have increasingly become obsessed with the ‘everyday’. Perhaps the onslaught of technology and having to continually exaggerate our ‘mundane’ lives on social media have meant that we can no longer turn our heads away from the wider world (and arguably, neither should we). It is all there.

This has become even more important in recent times, as we find ourselves digitising our entire lives; 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. However, I am beginning to discover, as many are, that this is also an important time for reflection. Perhaps this is an essential moment of our lives for repose, as we (quite literally) live with our own thoughts and dealing with not only the mundane but even the existential. A reflection on the past and the future and where we fit in within both, whilst being immortalised digitally.

In collaboration with the singers of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Fellowship, Morals + Interludes is a series of choral reflections on our relationship with our digital selves. Using ‘virtual memories’ from our own lives, from old home movies to snapshots from our social media personas and personal blogs, we have created five short postcards inspired by these lived experiences with the aim of finding either joy or unexpected profundity behind these snapshots. From the mundane to the moving, we held a mirror up to ourselves, discovering the moral behind each of our stories and the interludes that permeate our everyday.

This work was completed whilst on residence at The Red House (Aldeburgh, UK), as supported by Britten Pears Arts. The title of the work was inspired by Alfred W. Pollard's ‘English Miracle Plays, Moralities, and Interludes’, a collection of surviving Chester mystery plays, from which one inspired Benjamin Britten's ‘Noye's Fludde’.

-njd.

Eight voices or varying divisions of an SATB choir

1’

Kindly supported by NMC Recordings (Programme Digital Partners), Steinberg Media Technologies (Technology Partner), Stainer & Bell (Publishing Partner), The Garrick Charitable Trust, RVW Trust, The Michael Tippett Musical Foundation, Lord and Lady Lurgan Trust and PRS Foundation's Open Fund for Organisations.

'Morals + Interludes' was shortlisted by Ty Cerdd to represent Wales at the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) World Music Days 2021 in Shangai & Nanning. (May 2021)

'Morals + Interludes' receives 3rd Prize at New Music Generation 2021 International Composer Competition (October 2021)

As part of the release of the Young Composer Scheme, Vol. 2 album on NMC Recordings Digital label, I wrote a blog that goes ‘behind the notes’ of Morals + Interludes, sharing its starting point and who or what inspired me. It can be found here on the 'news' page.