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We Are All Here

Latest Album Release 4th December 2024

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WE ARE ALL HERE evolved out of a commission by Artist Eric Fong (www.ericfong.com) to write music for an art film he was making drawing from the hauntingly picturesque Horton Cemetery in Epsom Surrey and the sparse records left of women patients, from five nearby mental asylums, who were buried there. An archive of glass plate negatives of some of these women provide a poignant testimony of the attitudes of previous epochs, not only to mental health, but to women in particular. These faces, which seem to imply so much, nonetheless are held in a cryptic silence. We will never hear their stories.

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As I worked with Eric on the commission and visited the cemetery and the asylums (variously repurposed, but mainly housing), memories of my own mother's struggle with depression became incredibly powerful. As a child, I felt a responsibility to her and was often told of things I didn't understand, but felt I should somehow. As I grew older, I came to realise just how much my mother had been shaped by her class and background. That any aspirations should be firmly checked and set aside for more pragmatic considerations. As she grew older, she grew to loathe her role as housewife, yet  could never entirely free herself of it. My father, who exulted in his social role and happily scaled some of its heights, couldn't understand why my mother was so dissatisfied with hers.

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As these thoughts and influences filtered in and out of my consciousness, they drew more and more ideas from me,taking musical shape in the pieces on this album.

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The wonderful voices of Nina Kopparhed (soprano) and Jessica Summers (Mezzo soprano) in some way, for me, brought to life the voices of so many women whose lives foundered on impossible social mores and conventions. I hope the songs may stand in for their own lost voices.

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Seven of the tracks will accompany short films (watch here) which will be posted over the next few weeks

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Thank you for visiting my website or playing my music or watching my films - or all three!

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I'm also thrilled to have worked once again with painist Jelena Makarova and Daryl Giuliano (Cello) and Michael King (Classical guitar)

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Stewart

29-10-2024

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