Triptych

Cantata for string orchestra and chorus.

Triptych represents the concatenation and re-orchestration of two extant works. Movement I was commissioned with funds from The RVW Trust for the inaugural concert of the Choirof London conducted by Jeremy Summerly in Christ Church, Spitalfields on 18th December, 2004; the work, premièred as Threnody, was subsequently toured by the Choir to Jerusalem and the West Bank from 19th-26th December, 2004.Movements II and III, commissioned by Portsmouth Grammar School with financial support from the PRS Foundation, were premièred as And There Was a Great Calm in a contiguous version for lower strings and upper voices bythePortsmouth Grammar School Chamber Choir and the London Mozart Players in a concert at Portsmouth Anglican Cathedral on 13th November, 2005 conducted by Nicolae Moldoveanu. The title of this latter section is taken from ThomasHardy’s poem of the same name, written at the signing of the Armistice on 11th November, 1918; a couplet from which is set, in a moment of tranquillity, in the final movement.

Relatively new to living in New York, I am muchmore aware of the independent, vibrant cultural plurality that exists today; it’s probably the single most dazzling facet of the City and is largely responsible for the infamous ‘edginess’ that pervades daily life there. With thisin mind, I set to work on Threnody (movement I here) in 2004; I wanted to write something that was relevant to the Israeli/Palestinian issue without losing that City ‘edge’. The texts, in English, are excerpted from a variety ofsources: William Penn, William Blake, the Psalms of David and Muhammad Rajab Al-Bayoumi, an Egyptian poet of the early twentieth-century. Fast and rhythmically influenced by the music of North Africa in its syncopations, thismovement was the first composition that evolved entirely from my New York perspective.

From the moment that the commission for And There Was a Great Calm (movements II & III here) was offered, I knew the piece I was