Programme Note

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This piece was commissioned by the Leeds Lieder Festival 2018 in collaboration with poet Mike

Farren.

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(Lyrics adapted from his poetry)

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City of memory

I hope you don’t get too lonely

in the city I built out of fragments

of memory for you.

I hope you don’t mind the vacant lots

and buildings where rooms and floors

are nothing but void.

Don’t mourn for all the jobs

and the friends and lovers and children

that you might have had in a real life.

There are days when I wish I could walk

down those streets so I could greet

all those faces I’ll not see again.

Though I hope you don’t mind if your face

that I loved half a lifetime ago

might be one of the few I passed by,

without a flicker of recognition.

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