From The Book Of Songs is a song cycle in the art-song tradition. 

The music is formed using a variety of microtonal harmonic fields based on the harmonic series, and notated using 1/8 tones. The music was inspired by attending a lecture by the Soprano Jane Manning OBE, then listening to her performances of three Messiaen song cycles. 

From the Book Of Songs was realised firstly using the computer to produce the microtonal harmonic field whilst simultaneously writing the soprano part, imagining how it will sound. Having met Jane Manning, I sent her my early handwritten sketches of the song cycle. My music was well received by Jane and I was lucky enough therefore to have developed the final version of the piece with the insightful and kind support of the performer. 

The text for the songs comes from Arthur Waley’s interpretation of the classical Chinese work, The Book of Songs. It comprises of 370 individual poetic writings 

My song cycle From The Book of Songs utilises solo soprano, and tape (i.e. electronic computer music or fixed-media). The tape part is produced using computer music technology to realise a set of piano-like timbres, as well as an electroacoustic element. This...  more

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released October 23, 2016