Premiered by Red Note Ensemble, Conducted by Magnus Plejdrup Langgaard Møller on Fri 12th May 2023, at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

'Apricity' means 'the warmth of the sun in winter'. This was a new concept to me, but I was able to experience it on one rare occasion in January. I spent a timeless moment experiencing the phenomenon of 'apricity', when I came across a rare patch of sunlight on my street in January. 

There aren't 'movements' as such, rather fluid ideas, named:

I. Sunlight warming your bones and your soul on a cold winter's day
II. Squinting into the sunlight as the cold wind sweeps over your face
II. Closing your eyes with the sun on your face; sensing stress and tension drain out of you through your feet.

I wonder if you are able to imagine these sensations as you listen. I hope this music brings you a sense of calm, and takes you into your own patch of sunlight, your very own moment of Apricity.

Apricity

This piece was commissioned by the Marion Consort, and premiered on 20th May 2023, at St John the Evangelist Church, Oxford as part of the Music at Oxford Festival.

‘Hannah’ is based on the idea of biblical lament from a female perspective. I find it fascinating that the whole narrative of the renowned King David and later Jesus Christ himself hinges on an untold story of women who struggle to conceive. This epic lineage and history in the pivotal books of Samuel begin with Hannah (1 Samuel, chapter 1); crying on her knees. This piece catches her in the most raw and real moment of her lament, found in 1 Samuel chapter 1 verse 10, which is where the text for this piece is taken from:

'Crushed in soul,
Hannah prayed to God
and cried and cried
inconsolably'

(MSG translation)

Hannah

The Painting was recorded at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland by Amy Stewart (piano), Rebekah Lesan (cello) and Scott Bryant (violin) on 22nd May 2023.

This piece is not inspired by anything as such but is instead a musical response to my thoughts and frustrations with the phenomenon of inspiration itself. With Salvador Dali’s painting of Christ of St John at the Cross in mind, I wrote this piece from a distant perspective, acknowledging several different facets of inspiration: my own thoughts and feelings about the painting, the responses the public had to the painting as I witnessed them looking at it in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, my own reaction to my own response after looking at the painting, and more generally my own attitude to composing and creating art under pressure.

The Painting

Far We Bide was premiered by the Learig Orchestra on 3rd December 2022, in Aberdeen.

Far We Bide has been written as a collaboration between the players of the Learig Orchestra, and composer Amy Stewart. The piece is designed as a musical tapestry, with the wonderful region of Aberdeenshire at its centre. As the river Dee flows from mountain to sea, so this piece uses moments along that journey, and other places dear to the player's of the orchestra's hearts, as inspiration. The music incorparates a theme, written to encompass that flowing of the river through all the beautiful parts of Aberdeenshire, but more generally, the flowing of time. Underneath, a solid ground bass represents the land of Aberdeenshire, a constant, firm bedrock to which we return again and again. And as we return to these places, through changing seasons, these moments, we colour them with our memories and our emotions, and so the colours and textures in the piece evolve and change. The period of lockdown for all of us was hard, and lonely, but made bearable by the beautiful landscape that surrounded us in Aberdeenshire. Another element of the piece is the theme of lonliness and gradually coming together again, to gather and share the joy of music. This piece is just a glimpse of what our gratitude to our local landscape sounds like.

Far We Bide

Leave It All

The piece depicts the charasmatic ‘white noise’ sound from an untuned radio, and the journey from this sound to a fully tuned radio. Played live, the audience would hear and see this in three dimensions. At the beginning the unusual playing techniques on all the instruments are used to create the texture of the ‘white noise’ and throughout the piece, snapshots of melody can be heard, foreshadowing where the players arrive together at the end when the radio has been tuned.

Amy Simpkin

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