We are living in heightened days sensitive to the unearthing of hidden soundscapes and yet, we have been flattened by the darkly, dreariness of our foreshortened horizons. ‘Seeking a Steady State and Singing’ springs entirely from the intensification of place and space that has surfaced as we navigate our lives through a year of multiple lockdowns.
Through the musical interrogation of ‘scaffolding’ and ‘swerving sounds’ that echo across the year I have sought to compose music that reflects these times. As I composed this piece in the early months of 2021 the poetry of Alice Oswald and her anthology Woods Etc. was near and it is where my title is taken: ‘…and the mind whispering in its shell, and all trees with their ears to the air, seeking a steady state and singing it over till it settles’.