Poetry by Emily Dickinson, set to music for a mass of voices: her visionary lines are full of courage in the face of the vastness of the sea, the unknown, and death. 
A tribute to my late dear friend Jo Campling.
Performed by the BBC Singers.

Jeremy Thurlow / Emily Dickinson 

Exultation is the going, for 24 voices

In 'Ouija' the violin soloist, like a spirit-medium at a séance, discovers a rippling shoal of invisible voices and enters their world ('Among voices'). Later s/he encounters the spirit of Paganini ('Sprite'), before stumbling into the vast community of spirits who have played or heard, and been touched by, the violin-music of J.S.Bach ('Under the shadow of wings').
Live concert recording.

Ouija, for solo violin and electro-acoustic tape (excerpt)

Engines of discovery, real, virtual and imagined, through galaxies of sound.
Performed here by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James Macmillan.

Search Engines, for symphony orchestra (excerpt)

The unforgettable voice of masterly thumri singer Moumita Mitra interweaves with six instruments following their own path: different frictions, resonances, epiphanies arise. The music does not follow any particular programme or story, but in the course of a little background reading I came across Airaavatha, the white elephant ridden by the powerful Vedic god Indra, and was struck by one of his honorary names, 'Elephant of the clouds'. As a title this opened up enormous spaces for me to explore – between height and depth, weight and lightness, density and void, mind and emptiness.

Dr K sextet

Elephant of the clouds

In the early stages of composing this I chanced across a book of verses by the mystical Sufi poet Rumi (13th C). Among the many beautiful images I found there I was especially struck by these lines:  If the doors of repose have been barred to you, / Come, let us go / By way of the roof and the ladder – and was attracted by the restless compulsion to move on, to escape, regardless of obstacles and prohibitions, and the unexpected pathways opened up. Thus my cellist is a kind of a mystic, continually chasing after a state of exultation, following where body and spirit lead, through dance, song and ecstatic prayer. 'By way of the roof' is dedicated to my good friend Harold Meltzer.

By Way Of The Roof

In the early stages of composing this I chanced across a book of verses by the mystical Sufi poet Rumi (13th C). Among the many beautiful images I found there I was especially struck by these lines: If the doors of repose have been barred to you, / Come, let us go / By way of the roof and the ladder – and was attracted by the restless compulsion to move on, to escape, regardless of obstacles and prohibitions, and the unexpected pathways opened up. Thus my cellist is a kind of a mystic, continually chasing after a state of exultation, following where body and spirit lead, through dance, song and ecstatic prayer. 'By way of the roof' is dedicated to my good friend Harold Meltzer.

by Jeremy Thurlow

By way of the roof (extract)

Three songs on poems by Yves Bonnefoy, from his collection 'La planche courbée', written for the Hermes Collective and featured on their recent award-winning album SONG.

Elephant of the clouds

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