Sarah Westwood
Sarah Westwood
I use memory and intuition as a source for my music, and am drawn toward mixed media/interdisciplinary projects, for dance, video, theatre, installation or concert works. I make both acoustic and electronic music, sometimes incorporating found objects and sounds. In my current research practice, I use the memory of composing for dance as a compositional process. This feedback results in a memory of a memory for new compositions ...
Sarah Westwood
composer//sound artist//musician
I use memory and intuition as a source for my music, and am drawn toward mixed media/interdisciplinary projects, for dance, video, theatre, installation or concert works. I make both acoustic and electronic music, sometimes incorporating found objects and sounds. In my current research practice, I use the memory of composing for dance as a compositional process. This feedback results in a memory of a memory for new compositions ...
Sarah Westwood
composer//sound artist//musician
Things you don’t yet know you feel
I based Things you don’t yet know you feel on mood rings and invited poet Georgie Lorimer to create the text. I used the first and last stanza of her poem:
Let me hold you, love, like love holds disease,
breathing the essence of one another,
like a lover taking you in their arms
calming fears you don’t yet know you feel.
Years after, I found that small black disc
silent as remembrance and cold with sleep.
I squeezed it in my palm for that fleeting glimpse
of fear and passion before the lights went
out.
I treated the ensemble as a hybrid instrument, hiding the meaning of the words. Towards the end, when the singer has shifted away from the quartet and found their own voice, the quartet unravels. The piece has modal influences and became a guardian to me when writing.
*Winner of The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble Competition*
To request a score and parts, please get in touch here
Performance History:
19/09/22 Left Coast Chamber Ensemble // San Francisco Conservatory of Music, California
18/09/22 Left Coast Chamber Ensemble // Hillside Club, Berkeley California
16/09/22 Left Coast Chamber Ensemble // The Institute of Religion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Berkeley California
12/01/20 Patricia Auchterlonie (soprano), Clarice Rarity (violin), Christine Cornwall (violin), Katherine Clarke (viola) and Cecilia Bignall (cello) - Eton College Chapel, Windsor
09/11/19 Patricia Auchterlonie (soprano), Clarice Rarity (violin), Christine Cornwall (violin), Katherine Clarke (viola) and Cecilia Bignall (cello) - Emmanuel College, Cambridge UK
07/11/19 Patricia Auchterlonie (soprano), Clarice Rarity (violin), Christine Cornwall (violin), Katherine Clarke (viola) and Cecilia Bignall (cello) - University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield
04/11/19 Patricia Auchterlonie (soprano), Clarice Rarity (violin), Christine Cornwall (violin), Katherine Clarke (viola) and Cecilia Bignall (cello) - St Michael’s Church, Oxford
12/10/19 Patricia Auchterlonie (soprano), Clarice Rarity (violin), Christine Cornwall (violin), Katherine Clarke (viola) and Cecilia Bignall (cello) - Birmingham Centrala, Birmingham
WP: 05/09/19 Patricia Auchterlonie (soprano), Clarice Rarity (violin), Christine Cornwall (violin), Katherine Clarke (viola) and Cecilia Bignall (cello) - International Conference on Women’s Work in Music, Bangor Wales