String figures are a storytelling activity and an age old form of spiritual play. There are hundreds of them, from all over the world, often representing things from nature or day to day objects or activities. The long days of the Covid-19 pandemic UK lockdown and a bewildered mind led me to learning a number of them, picking at random for a welcome distraction. As the months went by and the lockdown continued, I began writing simple melodies to represent the simple, innocent and playful movements of two hands, a piece of string and the passing of time. There was so much uncertainty within the monotonous days and I think this also comes out in the pieces. 

My brilliant friends Mainly Two, a violin duo, recorded this collection of miniatures in the depths of the Black Forest in Germany 48°49'42.4"N 8°23’09.6”E. It had to be outside, everything had to be outside during that time, so you’ll also hear the soundscape of the forest, distant traffic and airplanes that surrounded them.

String Figures

The first of a series to be released throughout 2018, String Works is a collection of pieces focusing mainly on stringed instruments, supported of course by melancholy piano and atmospheric soundscapes.

String Works

Piano Works is the second installment of Lucy Claire’s ‘Works’ series. It is an eclectic take on what piano music can be. Featuring cellist Ren Ford (Keaton Henson’s Romantic Works) and violinist Marie Schreer (The Royal Northern Sinfonia) and surrounded in atmospheric binaural soundscapes, the piano is far from lonely. The work features a collection of pianos from grands and uprights, to electric keyboards, toy and thumb pianos. It is grounded in the real world but hints strongly at the magical and supernatural, it absorbs, transports, then delivers you back to reality with new perspective.

Piano Works

During the first lockdown in 2020, I began learning a number of string figures to pass the time. My next release of music is a reflection of that strange period of uncertainty and the string figures I learned. ‘Opening A’ is the lead track from my next EP ‘String Figures’, and I am delighted it will be released on Friday 21st May with Piano and Coffee Records!

Opening A is named after the opening move of a lot of the string figures that I learned. Most of them started in the same way.

String figures

Opening A

Butterflies

Breastbone And Ribs

Mouse

Apache Door

Many Stars

A small piece for my left hand, because my right-hand doesn't like to play the piano as much as I do. 

Reflections on learning to live with Repetitive Strain Injury.

Happy Piano Day!

Left

Left - Piano Day 2023

Voices - Alev Lenz
Piano - Lucy Claire
Violins - John Garner and Julia Loucks
Viola - Marie Schreer
Cello - Samuel Justitz

Recorded by Josh Green
Produced by Lucy Claire

LUCY CLAIRE - Stille Ft. Alev Lenz

Somnus Ft. Bruised Skies

In celebration of the first ever piano day, here's a little binaural recording of something new I've been working on! 

It was recorded on the beautiful piano at One Good Lied a Day, London.  

- Piano Day 29.03.2015 -

Voices of the Sea (solo piano / binaural recording)

Voices Of The Sea Ft. Marie Schreer

Kawaita Tsuki / The Barren Moon ft. Yuri Kono (Will Samson Remix)

This is the first track from my second collaborations collection (Out 11th March) and features the amazing Yuri Kono.  

I have many talented friends and I love to work with people. After a few years I found I had a small collection of music that I wanted to share so started this Collaborations series. I am very lucky to work with such talented people. 


LUCY CLAIRE - Kawaita Tsuki / The Barren Moon Ft. Yuri Kono

Line Of Lines

If The Moon Could Frown ft. The Iskra String Quartet

Silhouettes

Mourners Matinée

The first track from Lucy Claire's upcoming EP, String Works, out 9th March 2018 on 1631 Recordings! 

Violin - Marie Schreer, John Garner 
Viola - Francis Gallagher
Cello - Naomi McLean
Double Bass - Gwen Reed
Piano - Lucy Claire

It Is Winter Here

Dear Shadows - Piano Day 2018

Nettle

Thumb

Sage Ft. Ren Ford

Willow

Dear Shadows

All Its Colours On Me

Ninety-Nine Stones is inspired by a story told by Erling Kagge in his book Silence In the Age of Noise. It is a story about ninety-nine scientists based at the South Pole who had seen nothing but snow, ice and man made objects for several months at a time. One year someone smuggled in ninety-nine stones and as a Christmas gift gave each resisdent at the base one stone. Everyone sat holding their stones in quiet reflection feeling the weight of the stone without uttering a word. 

I imagined the jumble of sounds they might each individually be hearing in their heads, sounds from all around the world, where home is and where the pebble took them back to. I wanted to make them all sound at once. 

The solo violin part performed by Marie Schreer.

Ninety-Nine Stones ft Marie Schreer

Artist Lucy Claire has been working with the young people from the Samuel Coleridge -Taylor Youth Centre in Croydon. From a group workshop led by Lucy they have created a soundtrack for the exhibition. The soundtrack features binaural recordings taken from different parts of Croydon. The group also used texts from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s vocal works as well as letters to The Croydon Guardian newspaper that he wrote in response to racism and prejudice.The group have added their experiences and voices in response to Coleridge-Taylor. Lucy has mixed the soundscapes of Croydon and voices of the young people to create a compelling soundtrack for the installation.

Soundscape of Croydon; Croydon Plays Itself

Untitled 28 was a sculpture, video and sound installation created in 28 days by artist Marie-Louise Jones and composer Lucy Claire. It was exhibited in July 2017 at Here East in London as part of Gavin Turk and Anna Maloney’s show, Inside Out. 

The music reflects each sculpture in the installation and explores themes of duality and pairs through atmospheric binaural recordings, beautiful violin melodies and vocal textures. The materials used in the physical installation; wood, stone and metal play a prominent role in the soundtrack and the sounds created when collided together were used to create unusual textures which were weaved into the piece.

Symbiosis

Antennae

Talking To Me, Listening To Myself

The original Re is such a beautiful piece just the way it is. I was a little apprehensive attempting a rework of it, but found it irresistible. I had to do it. I feel I've created a delicate rework, as melancholic as the original with just a touch of what I love best; strings and soundscapes.

Re; Nils Frahm - a rework

'‘Paelistin’ is not just a political statement, it is the deep running river of anxiety for a region plagued by war. The resolution amounts to running in circles when we are faced with the futility of war.

The paper burns the careful, clean hand-writing:“The superior man ordinarily considers the left hand the most honourable place, but in time of war the right hand. Those sharp weapons are instruments of evil omen, and not the instruments of the superior man”'

http://vimeo.com/71766228
http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2013/09/lucy-claire/

John Garner - violin
Marie Schreer - violin
Tim Gill - viola
Lily Thornton - cello

Recorded by Josh Green
Mastered by David Lawrie

All music composed and produced by Lucy Claire



Bandcamp

LUCY CLAIRE - Paelistin

Pre-Raphaelites: Dreaming of a medieval past
16 May—27 September 2020 (postponed due to Covid-19)

This exhibition takes a fresh look at the Pre-Raphaelites and their obsession with medieval subject matter.

During the 19th century the Pre-Raphaelites created countless images of medieval history and legends. These pictures served as metaphors of an alternative world far away from the challenges of contemporary life.

While British society was rapidly changing during the age of Empire and Industrialisation, pictures of perfect kings, saints and fairy tales offered the imagination a temporary escape, a place to lose oneself and a social ideal to aspire to.

Along with highlights from our own collection, the exhibition will feature loans from art galleries around the UK including Tate and the Ashmolean Museum. Among others, the show will feature works by Edward Burne-Jones, Frank Dicksee, William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Dreaming of a medieval past takes a new well-being approach to exhibition design. We invite you to sit down, relax, and immerse yourself in the sights, sounds and smells around you.

This exhibition is a collaboration with The Bowes Museum.

Lucy Claire

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