If you're reading this, I am assuming you know a bit about Hear Us Now. If not, click here to have a read about the project generally before you read on.
This first project update comes after speaking with the three phenomenal composers I'm working with on Hear Us Now, Lisa Cheney, Hilary Kleinig, and Emily Sheppard. I met with each of them individually over the course of a few weeks, sharing a meal or a coffee, and let me tell you, they are the absolute dream team for this project. They held our conversations with such care and sensitivity, the same sensitivity that you can hear in their music and that I am sure you will hear in the music they will write for this project. I can't wait to hear what they come up with.
We talked about my experience of abuse and the shape that these commissions might take, deeply considering who this music is for and what it aims to say. I have never wanted this project to be about documenting my personal experience of abuse, but to speak to the feelings that I know are common amongst survivors, and to me, this is where the magic of music's abstract form lends itself so perfectly to this project. We're past the starting point of my ideas and experiences, where the music can grow into something much bigger and (hopefully) further reaching.
It was a scary thing to so publicly say that this work is important to me, hoping that it would resonate with those around me. Rather than anything I was afraid of though, it has been transformative to feel the strength of community support for this project and for us to collectively champion the creation of this music. It has also been transformative to have these scary, vulnerable conversations with Lisa, Hilary, and Emily, and have them respond with such generosity and care. For so many years, this experience was a secret, and each step out of secrecy has been connecting and healing.
For now, I've done my bit, and leave the creative work in the hands of these composers. We're expecting to have something to try out by the end of the year, and you can bet I'll be writing again once I've had a chance to see them and play them, before starting on the next steps of recording and performing. And, though my move to the UK was unexpected and means that I have a few logistics that I'm still figuring out for the latter half of the project, it's all still very much a go.
If you'd told me a couple of years ago that I'd be sitting in a little flat in London, writing about music that I was having composed for me, I'd probably have thought you were sarcastically picking on me. How special it is to get to reflect on the surprising and beautiful ways that time continues marching on, taking us places we couldn't have even imagined.