I always keep being drawn back to calm music I'm not actually a singer myself I
don't mind saying that I never trained as a singer or had singing lessons but
I've always understood how singers should sing and the whole idea that
composition is essentially lying it's also pulse but that's something else I
think this whole investigation of the line and shaping of line is nowhere
better designed or felt as it is within choral music I always think lying first
that I have always got one eye on the result in harmony this is getting down
to the Nitty Gritty of who I am as a composer and it's not that easy to to
simplify it but that's the best way I can say it and because of this I'm
always drawn back to choral music the thing about choral music of course is
that it is a universal musical idiom I should think if it were possible to do a
survey of every human being that's lived of course it's not possible but if it
were who had lived into adulthood how many of them would have sung I think all
of them I'm saying is every single human being sings singing I sometimes feel
he's also like a kind of crying a calling a crying a calling there are two
ways of using words I just spoken said spoken or cried or son singing is
as important as it ever been because if we compose for singers if we create for
sings we are facilitating a way to draw out of individuals this innate need to
be expressive to cry to call whether it's a call or a cry of anguish of love
or of pain or a desire I think if we were to preach the benefits of choral
music among all sorts of communities schools hospitals old folks homes
nurseries not just concert venues I think the world would be suffering less
than he's suffering in all these different ways this is one of the
reasons I feel the desire to write choral music because I think it's a way
of tapping into people at a deeper level than say just instrumental music is
everybody sings not everybody plays an instrument you actually have to make a
conscious decision I'm going to have violin lessons I'm going to I'm prepared
to spend an hour a day for the next five years practicing no singing is something
quite different from that because this is the music of the people this is the
music of communities this is the music of healing it's the music of therapy
I've taught music for 16 years and I've seen the way a class which is disorderly
and unsettled and preoccupied can be brought to attention by all singing at
the same time can be subdued can make people happy he can make people smile
can stay with people that shows itself our special choral music can be and I
want to be part of that I want to be part of that exciting way of reaching
people and changing their lives