Written for three acapella voices: Mezzo-Soprano, Alto and Tenor
Performed by: Mhairi Carson, Eva Black and Mikey Cottom

Based on a poem by Claire Laurence:

there is somewhere a missing seam that
takes this thing from balmy breath to bright like a
candle in a hollow. the matchstick tread from end of aisle

up to the alter and its cloth with all the light around us reeling, keening like and angel made of bone and dental fragments, rented, stagnant, time stood still between

the cavern of our palms an endless moment of the ache
inside your womb-wound heart and here i wonder: if i take you and your shoulders and your hipbones and your eyelids, if i

take you, all your love inside me rolling like the ocean boiling off, if i take and i lead you with your hand inside my hand, will you follow to my crater cave and build a garden there.


Programme notes: 

Song for the Nuclear Winter was born out of a conversation with my close friend Claire in which we discussed the intensity of relationships where the stakes of loss and gain are always so high. Claire described her poem as capturing the ‘frantic desperation of love as well as the reward that can be reaped in the form of growth’ but doesn’t shy away from exploring the neurotic and challenging nature of romantic love and the rituals that surround it. The title alludes to the universal impulse to make music in times of destruction and apocalypse, similar to the way love and devotion brings people together during times of hardship.

In my musical setting of the poem, I have attempted to explore these themes and ideas through contrasting musical sections which doesn’t follow the immediately noticeable structure of the poem, but instead functions in a way that dramatizes the continuously shifting tone in a theatrical manner. The arresting and perhaps restrictive religious imagery that permeates the poem lends itself to a chorale like texture. However, the music doesn’t become fully homophonic until the end of the piece, and until so, employs an array of extended techniques like whispering, humming and clapping which enhances the performative aspect of the music. These effects are layered over rhythmically charged verbs like ‘keeling’ and ‘reeling’ exacerbating the feeling of unease and being overwrought with emotion. The mood drastically changes in the final two stanzas as the melody from the opening section of the piece is heard in the major key. The theme of love transforms into an irresistible force which cannot be restrained. As the speaker makes the final demand of love, the voices move in complete unison in a chorale like fashion with short dramatic pauses in between phrases intensifying the lover’s plead.

Song for the Nuclear Winter (2021)

Original Score of short film Swine (2022)
Directed by Ege Kucucuk and Nikolas Kunesch
Music composed by: Deniz Dortok
Music Editor: Ural Turan
Conductor: Rutik Joshi
Soprano: Eve Hancock
Violin: Eleanor Prout
Cello I: Caroline Morris
Cello II: Rob Hughes
Cello III: Henry Bole
Cello IV: Patrick Beare

IMDB link to film:

Swine!

Duet for Harp and Bassoon
Performed by Anne-Marie O'Farrell(Pedal Harp) and John Hearne(Bassoon)

Programme Notes:

Palpitations is a piece exploring the embodied sensation of affection. The feeling frequently described as ‘butterflies in your stomach’, is portrayed in the music through a series of tremolo patterns decorated by key clicks and aeolian sounds. This is followed by a short passage in strict 4/4 with harp harmonics, offering a brief moment of respite and clarity. This is quickly undermined by the following section characterized by continuous changes in temperament, as feelings of confusion, anxiety and vulnerability become manifest. As such, the music never really settles in on a specific ‘mood’ or ‘feeling’, but instead avoids confrontation through a series of abrupt changes in dynamics, texture and rhythm. The piece ends with an almost exact repetition of the opening material, suggesting that these string of emotions form a ‘never ending’ cycle. A pattern that must be broken by acknowledging and embracing our feelings rather than avoiding them, or worse burying them deep inside of us. Indeed, the pattern breaks when a minor 3rd interval is heard for the first time in the tremolo figures and the music gradually disintegrates into complete silence.

Palpitations (2022)

short organ work with multiple layers each with their own patterns merging together. Digital performance on the VSL Rieger Kozerthaus organ. Enjoy

Organica #03

Polina Nazaykinskaya Caprice N.4 for violin solo
Performed by Kinga Augustyn

Caprice N.4 for violin solo

Racetrack 

Well it’s getting time to take a step aside 
Aside this one, aside this highway 
Oh this Racetrack 
So called life 
Just a litlle moment to feel 
To feel what’s driving me on 

In my heart, my soul and bones 
Was it the money, was it the power was it lust or vain? 

Well all this won’t offer me satisfaction of mind 
Did you expect here peel pink cloudy party times? 
So it’s getting time to hold on for a while 
Aside this one, aside this highway 
Oh this Racetrack named life 

Race! 
So 74 we gotta litlle speed down this limit because if not we’ll never get off, 
Reach too far as soon the end and the end is never coming slow so what the hell 
No matter how 

Race! 
Race! 

I was chasing luck 
What did you expect her? 
What did you expect here?! 
In my heart my soul and bones 
It was not the money, not the power not lust 
But Love 

©Erik Pardaens

Racetrack

Erik Pardaens Noah _ Racetrack

Reward

Letizia E. Klaver - Reward

Music by Vincent Kennedy - Performed by Coconino High School Symphonic Band and orchestra, conducted by Jennifer Hamilton   

A Different Drum

VANDE MATARAM

KYRIE SENZA VOCE for Pope Francis

Belgium-based composer of vocal and instrumental/symphonic (sacred) music in the tonal and polyphonic tradition. : psalms, cantata’s, passions, oratorio’s, symphonies, chamber music and vocal impro...

Dimitri is a composer who has dedicated himself to uplift and delight hearts, souls and minds through the reaffirmed beauty of melody, harmony, polyphony and counterpoint, and through the innumerable colors of instruments and human voices.

VANDE MATARAM

Dimitri Arnauts