I am an emerging librettist for contemporary opera and new music.
I am a Britten Pears Young Artist 2023-24 and was poet-in-residence in Snape Maltings as part of the 2023 English Song Course, mentored by David Harsent.
Composer Anna Disley-Simpson and I have written a new commission following on from our residency on the English Song Course. Our new song cycle, about bats and environmental destruction, will premiere at Aldeburgh Festival 2024, performed by two of our fellow English Song Course peers, baritone Jono Eyers and pianist Emily Hoh.
I am the current recipient of a Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant from the Arts Council, which will in part go towards developing my libretto practice under the mentorship of Laura Attridge.
I regularly explore post-trauma in my work, in particular sexual trauma, gendered violence, and medicalised trauma of chronic illness. I have a BA in Classics from Durham University and am interested in mythmaking as a means of processing the incomprehensible.
I am the writer and director of The Styx, a forthcoming project with support from Arts Council England. The piece combines opera, poetry and film, and is based on the myth of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.
Collaborating with Brian Low and Athanasia Kontou at the Royal Northern College of Music. Photo Steve Dearden.
In 2021, The Styx was awarded a project grant from Arts Council England, to fund the development of the script and score. The work draws on modern trauma therapy practices in parallel with the ancient myth of Persephone.
The work represents a collaboration with composer Athanasia Kontou and soprano Helene Mathiesen. Our co-partners are The Writing Squad and PTSD UK with support and advice from EMDR Association UK.
In 2021, composer Rebecca Nisco set three of my poems to music, to create The Mannequin Set. These were performed at the Royal College of Music by soprano Catherine Hooper, tenor Harry Grigg and pianist Emily Hoh.
Listen to moments from their performances here or via the Soundcloud panel.
In 2018, composer Athanasia Kontou and I met at a series of workshops run by The Writing Squad which paired composers with poets to create new song works. This songwriting collaboration came to fruition in our piece 'Odysseus/Penelope'.
Initially performed at the end of the workshop series, the song was performed again later at a concert at the Royal Northern College of Music, with piano by Brian Low and vocals by Lucy Temby. You can listen to this last performance here or via the Soundcloud panel.
links to other work:
