• Helen Grime
  • Bright Travellers (2017)

  • Chester Music Ltd (World)

Commissioned by Wigmore Hall with the support of André Hoffmann, President of the Fondation Hoffmann, a Swiss grant-making foundation.

  • pf
  • Soprano
  • 16 min
  • Fiona Benson
  • English
    • 5th May 2024, Wigmore Hall, London, United Kingdom
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Programme Note

i. Soundings
ii. Brew
iii. Visitations
iv. Milk Fever
v. Council Offices

I came across Fiona Benson’s collection ‘Bright Travellers’ by chance not long after I’d given birth to my son. I was very taken and moved by the series of poems about pregnancy and early motherhood and knew instantly that I wanted to set them. The poems are direct, sometimes funny and achingly beautiful and have a natural musicality about them. Writing this set of five songs was an extremely intense and sometimes emotional experience for me, as the poems move between a huge range of emotions from hope and joy to great sadness.

Programme note by Helen Grime

Media

Bright Travellers: No. 1, Soundings
Bright Travellers: No. 2, Brew
Bright Travellers: No. 3, Visitations
Bright Travellers: No. 4, Milk Fever
Bright Travellers: No. 5, Council Offices
Council Offices from Bright Travellers

Reviews

Discography