Ubi Caritas is a simple setting of these well-known and much loved words. My work is warm and direct with a wistful melody filtered through the whole choir in its short duration. The work is dedicated to my in-laws on their seventieth birthdays and was written for Benedict Preece and Caritas Chamber Choir who have supported my work with such dedication in 2022.

The Impromptus are simple pieces designed as breaks from larger compositional projects for the piano. They are an ongoing set, working with simple melodic ideas in different guises. Additionally, all three pieces explore in a rudimentary fashion the relationship between differnt pitches - in Three Sad Dances it is G and G# in Three Wistful Tunes it is C and F.

PAC

The Theme and Transfigurations is the final piece in my project of ‘transfigurations’ for the piano which have occupied me creatively for the majority of 2021-22. Whereas previous works have sought to transfigure folksongs, national anthems, popular songs and opera arias (amongst other things), this piece takes a short piece of my own from 2013 and transfigures different motifs, patterns, melodies and themes over five short movements.

PAC

National Anthems carries on my current preoccupation with the transfiguration of material from one state of being to something different, perhaps more spiritual and beautiful than the original. These four pieces are perhaps the most strict and direct of the transfigurations that I have undertaken in the past year or two and are thus the most distilled examples of the technique.

The Shadow Calls sets a bleak, but ultimately hopeful poem by American composer-poet Thomas LaVoy which was inspired by Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s The Dog, which the artist painted directly onto the walls of his house during a period of mental and physical distress.

I Am The Voice is a simple setting of these powerful words from the Book of John. The work is in a direct two-part form, with a passionate chorale following a slowly building textural section.

Al is Alles Stil was written for the Dutch choir Cappella Vocale for their 25th anniversary concert in October 2022. On the one hand it is a work of celebration and festivity, however, as the world emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is also tinged with sadness and nostalgia at all that was lost and could have been.

My second setting of the Te Deum is more expansive than the first, split into four movements and featuring a prominent solo soprano part. It takes a short self-quotation from an earlier work as the basis for a fifteen-minute modal fantasia.

Transfiguration takes a selection of ‘themes’ (some of which are as simple as a chord or a gesture, some of which are more apparent) from Gustav Holst’s 1927 masterpiece Egdon Heath and seeks to transfigure or transform them to a new medium and mode of being in keeping with much of my current work. Egdon Heath has long been a work I have been heavily influenced by and my piece is both a homage and an extension of some of the moods and colours of Holst’s original.

The Songs of Morning and Night carry on my current preoccupation with the transfiguration of material from one state of being to something different, perhaps more spiritual and beautiful than the original. These short pieces transfigure snippets of existing, well-known pieces into something more reflective, resonant and timeless (though not without some humour and pithiness). The six transfigured pieces are split into three aubades (‘songs of the morning’) and three nocturnes (‘songs of the night’) and transfigure folksongs, popular songs, a lied and an opera aria.