Premiere - ‘From the Chrysalis’
Murrough’s piece for SATB choir, ‘From the Chrysalis’, will be premiered by the Somnium Chamber Choir on Friday the 12th May (8pm) at Holy Name Church in Manchester. Composed in September 2021 and lasting 5 minutes, the work is a setting of an Emily Dickinson poem (‘From the Chrysalis’) and is Murrough’s first piece inspired by visual colours.
The music explores the strong progressions from darkness to brightness and from restriction to expansion in Dickinson’s poem. Tightly spaced lines, dark harmonic clusters and the use of humming attempt to emulate the constriction of a cocoon at the beginning. The chrysalis gradually opens to reveal the boundless sky and meadows in the form of resonant chords, soaring lines and modes which radiate the refreshing colours of spring.
