Project Summary:
I am planning a recording and tour of the work emerging from my recent (healthy!) obsession with Thomas Hardy's poetry. This will bring together my two sister pieces, Elegies for Emma* and Elegies for Tom,** alongside new arrangements and commissions of Hardy poetry for guitar and voice (Wessex Love Songs Project).***
We want to tour a concert through small venues in Wessex on foot, following a route taken by Holst when visiting Hardy in Dorchester from Bristol in 1927 and then continue on to Cornwall and sites associated with Emma and Thomas' courtship. This tour will coincide with the release of a recording of this repertoire and an eight-part podcast series documenting the project as it develops alongside discussions of Hardy's musical and poetic legacy with Hardy experts.
We will be fundraising through the summer of 2022, including a crowd-funding 'Kickstarter'... further details coming soon!
* Elegies for Emma is a song-cycle setting the poems of 1912-13, (Emma was Hardy's first wife).
** Elegies for Tom is a string quartet with mezzo-soprano. It responds to Hardy's poem Afterwards and sets Larkin's poem The Mower which is an homage to Afterwards.
*** Wessex Love Songs is a recital for guitar and voice bringing together musical settings of Hardy's poetry. It brings together new commissions and arrangements of canonic works and unearthed gems as well as core repertoire for guitar and voice.
I am planning a recording and tour of the work emerging from my recent (healthy!) obsession with Thomas Hardy's poetry. This will bring together my two sister pieces, Elegies for Emma* and Elegies for Tom,** alongside new arrangements and commissions of Hardy poetry for guitar and voice (Wessex Love Songs Project).***
We want to tour a concert through small venues in Wessex on foot, following a route taken by Holst when visiting Hardy in Dorchester from Bristol in 1927 and then continue on to Cornwall and sites associated with Emma and Thomas' courtship. This tour will coincide with the release of a recording of this repertoire and an eight-part podcast series documenting the project as it develops alongside discussions of Hardy's musical and poetic legacy with Hardy experts.
We will be fundraising through the summer of 2022, including a crowd-funding 'Kickstarter'... further details coming soon!
* Elegies for Emma is a song-cycle setting the poems of 1912-13, (Emma was Hardy's first wife).
** Elegies for Tom is a string quartet with mezzo-soprano. It responds to Hardy's poem Afterwards and sets Larkin's poem The Mower which is an homage to Afterwards.
*** Wessex Love Songs is a recital for guitar and voice bringing together musical settings of Hardy's poetry. It brings together new commissions and arrangements of canonic works and unearthed gems as well as core repertoire for guitar and voice.