Commissioned by Created Out of Mind/Wellcome Trust for the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. This is the choral version (it can also be sung by 8 single voices).

PPA (Primary Progressive Aphasia) is a dementia that affects different people in different ways, but includes semantic dementia, in which people affected might have difficulty finding the right word, and/or talking in a garrulous, roundabout way; and Progressive Non-Fluent Dementia, where people might be slower in speaking and begin to stutter, and/or begin to lose the meaning of the words as well as the words themselves.

I was especially struck by a short video from Created Out of Mind's research, in which a subject described tying up roses that had been disarrayed in the wind. Unlike some of those affected by PPA, this gentleman was very fluent in describing his morning activity in the garden, with demonstrative gestures; he just didn’t have the particular word to describe his main subject. 

I wanted to create a piece that set his words and was very subtly influenced by other forms of PPA. The aim was for a sense of unpredictable fluency; one in which very common words were treated as musically as more poetic ones might usually be; and one in which the creativity of the human mind in developing other ways to communicate is celebrated.

By Any Other Name choral version (LIVE)

Kerry Andrew is a composer, performer and author based in West  Yorkshire, England. 

They specialises in vocal music and opera, choral music, folk, jazz, and community music. Choral and experimental work has been heard on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, 6Music and Classic FM and on national news channels. Kerry won a British Composer Award in 2010 and two more for her chamber operas 'Woodwose' and 'Dart's Love' in 2014. They won their 4th for 'who we are' for the National Youth Choirs at the Royal Albert Hall. They were 2010-12's Handel House Composer in Residence. In 2017, she made her Proms debut with BBC Ten Pieces.

Her debut novel, Swansong, is out now: https://www.waterstones.com/book/swansong/kerry-andrew/9781911214229 and her second novel, SKIN, is published in February 2021.

Kerry performs as alt-folk artist You Are Wolf http://soundcloud.com/you-are-wolf; music can be heard and ordered here: https://youarewolf.bandcamp.com/

She performs with the award-winning vocal trio https://soundcloud.com/juicevocalensembleuk

She also performs with the jazz/classical/rock collective https://soundcloud.com/dollyman.

‘Stunning‘ Classic FM

‘Brilliant, Berio-like vocal effects…‘ The Times

www.kerryandrew.net

By Any Other Name choral version (LIVE)

Kerry Andrew Composer