Gentle (for soprano and marimba) comprises three short songs setting words by the 13th-century Persian poet known as Rumi, a Sufi mystic and Islamic scholar.  I originally composed them for soprano and piano in the autumn of 2013 following an incident in which a close friend of mine was subjected to a protracted and violent assault; they were dark days and composing this music seemed to offer respite. 

I reworked my original song settings for PercusSing in 2015, and the soft fragility of the simple musical material (particularly in the outer songs) seems particularly well suited to soprano and marimba.

The three songs are:

1) The Firmness Under You

2) Dance

3) Gently