A Balloon Flight
for soprano, string quartet and piano
2018
17’
commissioned by the London Arts Society on the occasion of their 50th Anniversary
premiered by Helen Semple with soloists from the London Mozart Players and Jeremy Limb
text from: A Balloon Flight by Henry Mayhew (1812-1887)
Henry Mayhew’s exhilarating account of a journey over Victorian London encapsulates all the varying, contradictory aspects of ‘the monster city’, as he briefly escapes above and away from it all, ‘sailing along almost among the stars’. A Balloon Flight seeks to capture both his sense of wonder and his vision of a restless, incessant, vice-filled city.