Fire was commissioned by The Opera Group and Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival as part of New Music 20×12, a UK-wide commissioning programme initiated by Jillian Parker and David Cohen, and delivered by PRS for Music Foundation in partnership with the BBC, LOCOG, Sound and Music and NMC Recordings.
Program note
Since long before the myth of Prometheus or the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, fire has been associated with the divine. And despite the fact that I am not a religious person, I still feel this same sense of something primal and spiritual when I see fire. In fact, it's fair to say that most people in front of an open fire find themselves sinking into a trance-like state of contemplation, not unlike prayer.
Fire is therefore a piece which we could add to the under-represented genre of "Non-Religious Devotionals"; it's a kind of prayer to fire.
The founders of the modern Olympic movement clearly felt similarly about the spiritual power of fire, embracing the symbol of the Olympic flame and acknowledging the special significance fire has always had for humanity. It's specially fitting therefore that this piece was commissioned to celebrate the Cultural Olympiad, the cultural arm of the 2012 London Olympics.
Proposed design by The World Famous
Salisbury Community Choir gamely test-driving an extract of Fire on a drizzly afternoon.
