“Seasons of Change” – Conway Hall Recording

“Seasons of Change”

The Conway Hall recording of the complete song cycle
inspired by “Free Trade Songs” for the League Bazaar 1845 by Eliza Flower (1803 – 1846)

Spring “Rachel”
Frances M Lynch
for tenor, hand percussion & sampled nature sounds

Summer “Future Dream”
Anna Appleby
for fixed media, tenor, soprano & loud hailers

Autumn “A Day in Autumn”
Lilly Vadaneaux
for solo voice
Text: R.S. Thomas © Elodie Thomas

Winter “Has the End Begun?”
Amanda Johnson
for soprano, tenor & recorded sound
Text: Hattie Johnson

Seasons of Change

(click on the blue arrow above to listen)

The Flower Composers worked together to create a song cycle reflecting both the seasons and the politics of power and poverty in the shadow of environmental crisis. This recording – made at Conway Hall, London, in August 2024 – fulfils the initial intention of the work, which was to create individual pieces that would still work as a complete cycle of songs.

Spring “Rachel”

Frances M Lynch

Spring
No lark, No whistle, No Song
Spring
Spring, She said, To the silence
Spring
Sowing seeds of sadness
Shattering the soil
For a future dream of Summer
Streams of sewage surfing waves
No Autumn harvest, No bright scene
No Winter hope, Just cold comfort
But it is Spring
Still Spring She said
Spring could be……
Spring shall be….
Is
Silent

Click here
for more information
about the music and composer

4 women standing together holding flowers with the library shelves and fireplace behind them

(above) The Flower Composers
at the premiere performance
Conway Hall, London, October 27th 2023
(L to R) Johnson, Appleby, Lynch and Vadaneaux

Autumn “A Day in Autumn”

Lilly Vadaneaux

Text: R.S. Thomas
© Elodie Thomas

It will not always be like this,
The air windless, a few last
Leaves adding their decoration
To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening
In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up
From the day’s chores, pause a minute,
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold

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for more information
about the music and composer

Summer “Future Dream”

Anna Appleby

You went and chose the name Gen Z
The last generation
There’s nothing left
We pick up remnants
Memories of others
The internet begins to eat itself
You went and chose the gas and oil
Monetised survival
We still have rain and wind and sun
The future dream has just begun

Rain is Free
Wind is Free
Sun is free
And so are we

Click here
for more information
about the music and composer

Winter “Has the End Begun?”

Amanda Johnson

Text: Hattie Johnson

A sliver of glass lines the moon
like the wet surface sheen of a heart
The cold this year is a new sensation
The type a place feels when all air is inhaled from it
Has the end begun?

The low white sun in the day
Had thawed the sun
But the water’s beginning to freeze again
Shards of feathered crystals shift
Since the Summer now burns the land and skin
The cold has become a comfort

The journey towards the end has begun
The set of events leading to the final day
Has been set in motion
They were written out a long time ago
Once the speaker starts to read aloud
It is decided; the end has begun

The cold is now a comfort
The journey towards the end
Has begun; it is decided
But has the end begun?
Has the end begun?

Click here
for more information
about the music and composer

Seasons of Change

Commissioned by

ELECTRIC VOICE THEATRE
with funds from
The National Lottery Heritage Fund & Hinrichsen Foundation

Composed by
Frances M Lynch, Anna Appleby, Lilly Vadaneaux, Amanda Johnson

Seasons of Change was premiered on Oct 27^th 2023 at Conway Hall in London, as part of our performance of “Flowers of the Seasons – Politics, Power & Poverty” celebrating Flower’s music.

We continued to tour to Harlow & Newcastle in early 2024 and gave 5 performances of the pieces which were also explored by students, school pupils and young singers in our accompanying workshops.

With grateful thanks to our funders
The National Lottery Heritage Fund – National Lottery players,
Hinrichsen Foundation and Ambache Charitable Trust
SCOPS Arts Trust
and our partner Conway Hall Ethical Society

Flower’s “Free Trade Songs” was published by Novello to support the Anti-Corn-Law League at their extraordinary Bazaar, held over 17 days in the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1845.
The texts of the songs are by her sister, the poet, Sarah Flower Adams who is best known for penning the hymn “Nearer My God To Thee”. They worked together, not just artistically but also in radical politics, fighting for the rights of workers, women, enslaved people, and particularly for the poor and their struggle to survive in the face of high food prices and low wages – a struggle sadly mirrored today.

A blue buttone with a lottery symbol saying