For solo violin, performed by Jeanne-Marie Conquer of Ensemble Intercontemporain at the University of York, 22nd November 2022.

A phasmid is a creature from the order of insects that includes stick insects, but here it refers to the Insulidian Phasmid, a fictional creature from Disco Elysium, ZA/UM's elegiac 2019 masterpiece. At the game's climax, the giant insect emerges from the reeds, stridulating while it converses with you. Its chirruping is described as sounding 'like a reel-to-reel tape machine spinning after the tape breaks', creating sounds 'that swarm around you head like swallows. Like laughter. A sort of happiness.'

Phasmid

I. Folding

Performed by the Micklegate Singers, conducted by Nicholas Carter, at St Lawrence's Church in York, 23rd March 2024.

In this beautiful Quaker funerary text by Quaker by William, I saw a glimmer of a philosophical idea that has captivated me since my school days. Derek Parfait’s Reasons and Persons breaks down conventional ideas of selfhood, prompting us to view it as a chain of experiences rather than a thing of itself. This suggests a rethinking of death that emphasises the continuity of our experience in others: friends ‘live in one another still’.

This piece’s musical language is inspired by Georgian polyphony, which is oriented around stacked fifths and fourths. These move in unfamiliar ways, contracting and expanding in parallel movements that feel counterintuitive to me yet profoundly satisfying and resonant. The power of these parallel fifths and the weight with which they converge in moments of unison felt appropriate for this work: I hoped to write a register both serious and yet surprising, open to movement and joy.

Joseph Bates

Popular tracks