A choral setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'Binsey Poplars', performed by Utrecht-based choir Kamerkoor JIP in Pieterskerk, Utrecht, June 2022. The poem describes Manley Hopkins' sadness at the felling of his favourite trees - an apt sentiment for this age of ecocide.

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
    Of a fresh and following folded rank
            Not spared, not one
            That dandled a sandalled
            Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
 
O if we but knew what we do
            When we delve or hew—
    Hack and rack the growing green!
            Since country is so tender
    To touch, her being so slender,
    That, like this sleek and seeing ball
    But a prick will make no eye at all,
            Where we, even where we mean
            To mend her we end her,
            When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
    Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
            Strokes of havoc unselve
            The sweet especial scene,
            Rural scene, a rural scene,
            Sweet especial rural scene. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1879

Binsey Poplars

For SSAA choir and bass drum. Performed by the Lucy Cavendish Singers in Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Cambridge, March 4th 2017

Text from 'Song of a Man Who Has Come Through' by D.H. Lawrence

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!
A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.
If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!

If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Driven by invisible blows,
The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.
Admit them, admit them.

Concerts

'The Three Strange Angels' for women's choir and percussion

Shell Symphony was composed by Kate Honey in 2017 to call on Amsterdam's Concertgebouw to end its partnership with the oil giant Shell. It is written for Rhythms of Resistance samba, oboe, saxophones, flute, harp, electric guitar, vuvuzela and oil drum. It is in three movements:
I - Corrupting Influence
II - Poisoned River
III - We are Nature Defending Itself

A video of the performance outside the Concertgebouw can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbqUMGOhCQ4

For more information on fossil fuel sponsorship of the arts and why it must end, see here https://fossilfreeculturenl.wordpress.com/

Omwentelingen

'Shell Symphony' for large ensemble (incl. Rhythms of Resistance band)

This is a piece for piano, recorder, flute, trombone and drum set. Written for a Creative Performance Lab production about refugees and xenophobia, entitled 'Welcome. Thanks for Coming. Get Out!' This piece accompanies a slideshow of art by refugees:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5o0stBF7Tk

'Sea Funeral' for piano, recorder, flute, trombone and drums

For violin and piano. Performed by Peter Sheppard Skaerved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano) at Kettle's Yard gallery, 27th April 2014.
Inspired by the poem below by Gary Snyder:

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

--Gary Snyder

'Stay Together, Learn the Flowers, Go Light' (excerpt) for violin and piano

'Anthropocene' was written for the Nieuw Ensemble in early 2018, and performed in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. It was inspired by the ancient forest close to Hambach, Germany, which has been 90% destroyed over the last 30 years to make room for Europe's biggest coal mine. Activists have saved the remaining forest from destruction. The piece is accompanied by a video of images from Hambach forest and the coal mine (coming soon).

'Anthropocene' for the Nieuw Ensemble

We Need Trees

Short choral piece based on a chant:

We need trees for air to breathe
Keep the air and spare the trees

Written in memory of an activist at Hambach Forest, Steffen Meyer

We Need Trees (longer version)

This is a piece written at Hambach Forest near Cologne, for trumpet, bongos, electric piano and recorded sounds from the forest - including birds, insects and sounds of the coal mine.

Hambach Forest is in danger from the coal company RWE, which wants to destroy the forest to expand the mine. Visit hambachforest.org to find out more and join the movement to protect it and ourselves

'Hambi Bleibt' means 'Hambach Forest Survives'. Everything was recorded and performed at Hambach Forest.

Hambi Bleibt!

Written Autumn 2007. A piece for Trumpet and String Quintet inspired by the wood in C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew.

'The Wood between the Worlds' for trumpet and string quintet

Earth's Gift is an 18 minute piece which takes as its inspiration the relationship between humanity and fossil fuels. The music (for flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, piano and electronics) combines with visuals by Emma van der Steen. This excerpt accompanies visuals of the docks and harbours of Amsterdam

Earth's Gift (excerpt)

http://www.katehoneymusic.co.uk
Kate Honey (1991) is a British composer. Her work has been performed in the Southbank Centre, St Johns Smith Square, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, the National Concert Hall of Ireland. She is the recipient of the Arthur Bliss Prize for Composition 2013. 

As a composer Kate frequently engages with environmental issues. Her recent pieces Shell Symphony and Anthropocene take the fossil fuel industry as inspiration. Shell Symphony was performed outside the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in Oct 2017 to call on the institution to cut its ties with Shell.
www.katehoneymusic.co.uk

Kate Honey Music

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