Notes from our youth
Commissioned by: Illuminated River Foundation/Mayor of London
Oil painting by Elliot Roworth
Illuminated River is a multi-disciplinary art project, centring around Leo Villareal’s adaptive lighting display. Commissioned by the Mayor of London and the Rothschilds Foundation to bring new life to the fifteen central most bridges on the River Thames, the project is estimated to bring over two-hundred million people to London’s river banks and bridges. Along side the lighting design, the Illuminated River Foundation commissioned music to be written for each bridge respectively. I was commissioned to write an orchestral work with poetry, in collaboration with the Barbican Young Poets, for the Millennium Bridge.
The four writers responded to the project, writing a short poem that encased their perception of what it means to be forward thinking today. Their responses formed the material that inspired what I eventually wrote. When the pice was first performed, it was accompanied by the poems.
Instrumentation Poets
Harpsichord Riwa Saab Orchestra Kit Finnie Electronics Marlowe Mitchell Rhodes Piano Eleanor Penny
Poems
Kit Finnie
before there was us, there were these still waters nothing was teething, nothing slaked nothing’s thirst nothing was given, nothing fathers to daughters what came was a gift, still- still, waters were first
yet the things that come stealing while our throats start to clot are the things that were teething while we watched our root rot
Riwa Saab
Her backpack is twice as thick as her own back. She wears patterned leggings and a bright aquamarine shirt that proclaims "I’m here" There’s a kid with headphones and a tablet as big as his hand and a half He drags himself as if the world is really the one pulling down beneath his feet
Eleanor Penny
I can’t go home. The moon half-sick of shrieking tumbles from the blackest branches of the olive tree. Cradled, like a struck dove. We are always burying the moon at the bottom of the garden in an unmarked box. They think it looks barren from this distance like bone. They still think bone is barren somehow. Despite the thousands of shot people who are living. Who are waking in the dust. Crawling from the rubble newly precious, metal jeweling their shoulders and their thighs.
Marlowe Mitchell
The worst is remembering carefree hopelessness Queer meaning fearlessly dying young was all there was to give
The best is realising casual happiness Queer meaning fighting and dreaming and years ahead to live
Performances
2019/2020
Millennium Bridge / Themes River Boat (IR Launch) / Great Hall (Guildhall) / Broadgate Circle