Programme Notes

After writing my piece for the Choir and Organ Magazine New Music Series, I and Joseph Fort - the director of the choir of King's College London - discussed me writing a standalone piece for them. Of particular interest were the special memorial services which the choir perform in: King's College London is home to the London Anatomy Office, an institution to which one may donate one's mortal remains after death for the purposes of medical research. This is a selfless act which deserved remembrance in of itself.

In coming up with the idea of the piece, we agreed to try to find a text that wasn't necessarily religious in nature. The perfect text was found in the writings of Christina Rossetti. The poem "Let Me Go" is about accepting death as a natural part of life; to remember all that was good about a departed person's time on Earth; to allow oneself the space to grieve, but also keeping the door open for moving on with one's own journey.

I would like to term this piece as one of humanist remembrance.