Gold from the Stone 6” (2022)

I first started a sketch of Gold from the Stone a few years ago, after reading the poem by Lemn Sissay. It sat in a drawer until I saw JAM’s Masterclass Series with Voces8 led by Paul Mealor, which I was lucky enough to be selected for. I brought the sketch to the workshop and following very helpful input from the singers and Paul, developed it for concert at St Bride’s Church in October 2022, performed by Voces8 Scholars.

The piece won JAM’s President’s Commission, for which I wrote The Song I Came to Sing, premiered at JAM’s Music of Our Time concert, March 2023.

I wanted to reflect the poem’s sense of yearning, as well as its simplicity, repetition and to my mind its mysterious quality. Sissay clearly wrote the poem from his specific, autobiographical perspective — he was born to an Ethiopian mother but adopted by a white British family and didn’t know of his mother for years — I feel the poem also has a universality to it.

With the composition I have reflected the declamatory nature of refrains such as ‘Gold from the Stone’ or ‘Blood from the Earth’ with the world-weary, painful yearning for home in my repeated I shall be leaving soon.