As part of the RPS composer programme I was commissioned to write a piece for the Cheltenham Music Festival, performed by The Carice Singers.

The World is the Active String, for SATB choir was performed at Cheltenham College Chapel on 9th July 2023. It’s second performance takes place at St Martin In the Fields on 22nd September 2023.

The World is the Active String explores the complex resonances produced when physically and aesthetically separate materials overlap in unexpected ways. In this work, sound moves amongst spatialised singers onstage, and between onstage and offstage groups. At the same time, a repeating two-chord refrain overlaps with a series of solos and duets exploring tiny, microtimbral inflections in sound. The assemblage of these materials creates an environment which evokes the primordial, gesturing to a soundworld that originates in the earth and which echoes continuously through time. This piece encourages listeners to consider human participants as sympathetic strings that allow us to momentarily tune in to the ongoing resonances of the world around us.