Hannah Kendall's new work will premiere at this year's Concerts by Candlelight tour, find out more about the composer.
11 November 2024
This Concerts by Candlelight series features the world premiere of Hannah Kendall’s commission And At Pains to Temper the Light .
Known for her attentive arrangements and immersive world-building, British composer Hannah Kendall’s music looks beyond the boundaries of composition. Just like Scottish Ensemble, her work bridges gaps between different musical cultures, both honouring and questioning contemporary tradition while telling new stories through it. Hannah’s jazz musician Grandfather influenced her informative years, and she later went on to study at the University of Exeter where she majored in vocal studies and composition. In 2015, Kendall was noted as one of the “brilliant female composers under the age of 35” as well as winning the 2015 ‘Women of the Future Award’ in the Arts and Culture category. Hannah is currently on the faculty at Columbia University and received the Hindemith Prize for outstanding contemporary composers in 2022 and the Ivor Novello Award for Best Large Ensemble Composition in 2023.
At Ease As The Day Breaks Beside Its Erasure
And At Pains To Temper The Light
At Liberty Like The Owl When
The Need Comes Knocking
To Fly In League With The Night.
Inspired by British artist and writer Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s poem – which encourages open dialogue, leading to liberty – Hannah’s new work reflects these themes and explores her Guyanese heritage and the historical connections between Scotland and the Berbice region of Guyana, home to the site of 19th-century Scottish sugar and coffee plantations.
“My grandfather and his family were from the Berbice region of Guyana, which has deeply rooted and routed, yet largely forgotten or unknown, historical connections to Scotland. In And At Pains to Temper the Light, I seek to reimagine and refresh these ties, creating renewed spaces of connection that have the potential to inspire transformation through sound. I am indebted to Scottish Ensemble, a group of musicians I so deeply admire, for giving me the opportunity to explore this part of my heritage in a way that hopefully also speaks to shared experiences that transcend borders and time.”
In her piece Hannah remembers the people enslaved on the former plantations of Berbice and Demerara. Afro hair objects are used to alter the sounds of quintessential Western instruments -the violin and viola. Through the merging of the Afro and Euro she creates a form of remembrance that illuminates, or perhaps even conjures through invocation, the lost voices of the plantations across space and time.
And At Pains to Temper the Light is a commission by Scottish Ensemble, Staatsoper Stuttgart and Staatstheater Stuttgart.