26 January 2021
Sophie and I recorded the online premiere of still here on 16th November 2020. It was webcast on 2nd December as my contribution to the locked-down, pared-down season of Musicon, Durham University Music Department’s concert series.
It’s a slow, contemplative listen (though the lockdown vibe is coincidental) and deals in constantly shifting tints of an overall monochromatic hue – darkened further on this occasion by the Gothic architecture of the Concert Room and some characteristically bleak, autumnal weather outside the window.
My programme note read:
still here: being still, being here; still being here. James Weeks’ new 45-minute piece for violin and piano, written during lockdown for his wife Sophie Appleton and himself, explores both presence and the continuity of presence: gathering the threads of time passing and past into a calm rootedness of being.
Huge thanks to Sophie for playing it with me, and to Simone Tarsitani and Martin Allison for recording and editing. Performing ‘as live’ to a non-existent audience is a strange and uncomfortable thing, but worth it to keep life rolling on. We’re still here…