WORKS

Lilias for soprano, loop station and pre-recorded sound. (Jan 2025- Feb 2025)

‘Lilias’ tells the story of a woman accused of witchcraft, tortured, shaved, stripped and deprived of sleep, she died before she could be burned to death. As consequence, she could not be buried on consecrated ground and thus was buried at the shoreline of Torryburn bay under a slab of stone to prevent her from returning to torment the living. Her body was later uncovered and pieces of her skeleton were sold as souvenirs or displayed in exhibitions. The whereabouts of her skull is still unknown.

My semi-improvised work explores Lilias’ soul in a state of eternal unrest. Her story, with phrases taken from her confession and the names of other women accused of witchcraft, is fragmented, signifying her displaced skeleton and emulating the hysteria and purgatory caused by the torture and sleep deprivation she experienced.

Pre-recorded birdsong and gentle whistling is gradually introduced to the piece, emulating the sound of the Torryburn bay whilst unrelenting visceral vocal sounds of choking and constricted breath, echo Lilias' vulnerability and deteriorating state.

The Honoured and the Scorned One for soprano and loop station. (Aug 2024-Sep 2024)

In reading a book of essays on 'Babylon, the modern goddess' I came across a piece of text which, through research, I discovered was a small section of an anonymously written longer poem found in Egypt in the 1940s. The poem is riddle-like in nature, an inner-monologue from the female perspective and, for me, emanates the confusion and frustration caused by the conflicting expectations of women in our society.

The piece begins with the poem which is then built upon with layers of harmony, creating a bed of sound and texture of which the improvisation section of the piece sits upon. The poem is frantically muttered, sporadically interrupted with cries of frustration, an attempt to break free from the unrelenting inner monologue, whilst visceral choking sounds convey her succumbing to the hysteria caused by inner conflict.