‘sable and snow’ for Maîtrise de Radio France
‘Sable and Snow’ is a piece by Héloïse Werner, which intertwines Emma Werner’s poem ‘Sable’ with my poem ‘Snow’. Commissioned by Radio France, the piece was performed by Héloïse (soprano) and the Maîtrise de Radio France children’s choir. It was first broadcast by Radio France on Christmas Eve 2022.
‘Like Words’ for Héloïse Werner and Amy Harman
A setting of my poem ‘Like Words’ for soprano and bassoon by Héloïse Werner. ‘Like Words’ was the lead single of Werner’s debut album Phrases (Delphian, June 2022). The poem was first published in PN Review. Premiere: Emily Hultmark and Héloïse at Wigmore Hall.
Read a review in Gramophone, listen on Spotify and buy the album.
Times Classical Albums of the Year (2022).
‘THE ORANGE VENDOR’ for the isolation songbook
A setting of my poem ‘The Orange Vendor’, composed by Héloïse Werner, and performed by Helen Charlston, Michael Craddock, and Alexander Soares, as part of The Isolation Songbook.
The Isolation Songbook was first performed as part of the Livestream Series from St Pancras Clock Tower, supported by the City Music Foundation. It is available from Delphian Records (2021).
The Isolation Songbook was a lockdown project. The feeling which many of us experienced in spring 2020 as, country by country, the world went into lockdown – a sense of life gone into standstill – was especially acute for musicians, deprived suddenly of both their livelihoods and the human connections that give their work meaning. For singers Helen Charlston and Michael Craddock, it was not only their art that they could no longer express publicly: they had been due to marry in April. Forced like so many to put plans of any kind on hold, Helen began to find ways of redirecting her creative energies. She wrote a poem for Michael to mark their postponed wedding date, and the composer Owain Park, a friend of the couple, set it to music. Helen began to contact other composers and poets, and unexpectedly but quickly a project took shape that would both fill the empty time and bear witness to it. ‘The Orange Vendor’, inspired by Natalia Goncharova’s painting of the same name, is one of those poems. It was set by Héloïse Werner.
Read a review in The Guardian, watch on Facebook, or listen on Spotify.
Presto Classical Editor’s Choice for March 2021.
Presto Classical Presto Recordings of the Year Finalist 2021.
‘Familiar objects’ with the hermes experiment
Familiar Objects: a sequence of 12 poems by Ali Lewis with semi-improvised music by The Hermes Experiment.
Commissioned by New Dots for Lexicon. Photography: Cathy Pyle.
This collaborative piece combines my poems with semi-improved music by The Hermes Experiment.
Each of the 12 short poems is inspired by, anthropomorphises, or converses with an everyday object that is ordinarily overlooked. I wanted to explore how we use objects to understand and tell stories about ourselves, how we use human personalities to give meaning to objects, and how we negotiate agency with objects that influence us as much as we influence them.
The three sections of the piece, which are also musically distinct, are loosely concerned with these three ideas respectively. More obviously, though, each section addresses a distinct set of objects.
In October 2016, I met The Hermes Experiment to rehearse and to assign musical ideas to the poems. This performance was semi-improvised on the basis of those rehearsals.