Eliza is for soprano and found objects. The objects used are a length of chain, an outdoor brush, a shovel (or spade), a baby’s rattle and a paperback book.

The text is taken from Harriet Beech Stowe’s The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written in 1854.  Chapter 5, entitled ‘Eliza’, is a reminiscence of Stowe’s experience of observing a slave at church.

The piece uses spoken, sung and sprechstimme voice. It paints a picture, using objects of the time, of the shackles of slavery and how this was the norm in the community Stowe visited.