Let There Be Peace

Let There Be Peace On 28th February 2012 a Landmark Poem from Lemn Sissay was unveiled in The Atrium, University Place, Manchester. ‘Let There Be Peace’ is a call for calm, or as Lemn says ‘a press release for peace’. In 1998 Lemn & Andy collaborated to create the work ‘My Mountain Top’, which is performed worldwide & has been recorded to date on nine CDs. Andy’s piece ‘And Everything Is Still’, initially scored for flute & piano, took its title from one of Lemn’s poems from ‘The Emperor’s Watchmaker’. Andy writes; “I find Lemn’s words inspiring, and in some cases the right vehicle for me to try and capture the spirit of his words via music. The writing of this piece coincided with the launch of ‘Let There Be Peace’ in Manchester, it all fitted well conceptually as I was writing this piece for the Manchester based euphonium player Aaron Rivkin. Aaron had won the Open Class in the inaugural Foden’s Band Solo Competition. In my role as Composer in Residence I was to compose a short piece for the competition winner as part of the prize.” The music mirrors the form of the poem, three main sections, with euphonium cadenzas linking these sections. An overall yearning for tranquility is tested in the cadenzas, with an insistency and potential conflict, however calm prevails. World Premiere given by Aaron Rivkin & Iva Navratova at the International Tuba & Euphonium Conference 2012 (Artistic Director Steven Mead), Brucknerhaus, Linz, Austria on 25th June 2012.