Lyell Cresswell was born in New Zealand, but has spent most of his career in Edinburgh. The professionalism, creativity, sensitivity, and strength of his work is a reminder of how much very fine music is being composed that never makes it onto the radar screen of the general listening public. The BBC commissioned The Voice Inside, a concerto for the unusual but felicitous combination of violin, soprano, and orchestra. It's a setting of seven poems by Edinburgh writer Ron Butlin, all on the subject of the violin. The use of ...
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Lyell Cresswell was born in New Zealand, but has spent most of his career in Edinburgh. The professionalism, creativity, sensitivity, and strength of his work is a reminder of how much very fine music is being composed that never makes it onto the radar screen of the general listening public. The BBC commissioned The Voice Inside, a concerto for the unusual but felicitous combination of violin, soprano, and orchestra. It's a setting of seven poems by Edinburgh writer Ron Butlin, all on the subject of the violin. The use of the text as a commentary that's simultaneously heard with the instrument it's describing is an extremely clever conceit, and Cresswell's handling of it is inventive and incisive, never relying on the kinds of clichés that such a setup might suggest. The text setting is skillful and imaginative, and the words are almost always easily comprehensible. His language is atonal, but it's so evocative, expressive, and lyrical that it should speak to broad audiences. Cassandra's Songs for...
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