Singing Light: for soprano and electronics

‘Singing Light’ is a setting of Dylan Thomas’ famous poem ‘In my craft or sullen art’. It describes poet’s solitary labours, late at night, while the world is sleeping and ‘only the moon rages’; not dissimilar to the circumstances in which this piece – and most of my music – was composed. The pitches and rhythms of the voice line are taken directly from a transcription of Dylan’s own reading of the poem, recorded by the BBC in 1945.

The piece was composed for soprano Deborah Norin-Kuehn, who gave the world premiere at the Bangor Music Festival in February 2025.