Sakura Variations for Choir
July 2nd 2024 (première), March 16th 2025 (Bucks première) In 2021 my former music teacher Nicholas Bannan returned to the UK after having spent 15 years as a lecturer at the University of Perth. After a quick catch-up, he commissioned a piece from me for The Castle Choir, an amateur choir he was directing at the time, as well as inviting me to perform with the choir as a member of Inscape Duo. The resulting piece was ‘Sakura Variations’, based on the Japanese folksong about cherry blossoms and the coming of Spring. The piece was sung in Japanese! It was subsequently performed the following spring by the choir I regularly play piano for: The Firth Singers (dir. Fiona Firth).