Aim: To mix, master, produce and distribute a CD of new works for Violin, Viola, Soprano and Piano with the Deux-Elles label.
In 2020, while in Lockdown, I had an idea to write a new set of sonatas and songs.
Soprano Ilona Domnich has been a long term collaborator of mine, and the choices of texts were hers. I loved the idea of setting some beautiful texts of Pushkin, who lived through the Cholera Pandemic of 1830. Lockdown for him was liberating, as it was for so many isolating creatives in 2020. Having written the songs, I spent some time in Liverpool in 2021 writing a new Violin Sonata for my brother in law, composer Mihkel Kerem, and then in 2023, a new Viola sonata for Charles Mutter. Charles has kindly agreed to record all the new works for both Violin and Viola.
As a composer, I have always been drawn to the emotional currents that run beneath personal and historical memory — to the quiet spaces where loss, resilience, and hope meet. In these new works for viola, violin, soprano and piano, I want to bring that sensibility to bear on a broader reflection: on the fragility of our world, politically and environmentally, and the forces that connect and divide us. I wanted draw on the lyrical, introspective language that has shaped much of my music, crafting a dialogue between the viola’s human, searching voice and the piano’s shifting landscape of textures. Rather than making a direct political statement, my aim is to create a space for reflection — to evoke the beauty, the tensions, and the quiet urgency of a world at a crossroads. As in my previous work, I hope to find a balance between melancholy and hope, restraint and emotional openness, allowing the music to speak honestly to the complexities of the present moment.
Ever since I've known about the Deux-Elles label, I've always had a yearning to work with them. They have an integrity and a discernment that I have long admired and I am thrilled to released these new works with them.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 22nd July 2025 at 11:11am