You have a new work premiering at the Coriole Music Festival. Can you tell us about the commission?

Anna Goldsworthy, who is the Artistic Director of this year’s Coriole Music Festival, approached me about writing a piece. The Board has started a commissioning program for the festival with the intention that every year there will be a new work commissioned and I am very honoured to be the inaugural composer for this program. What I really liked about this is that I got a lot of freedom. Anna mentioned “these are all the musicians we have available so go for it, whatever you want to do.” She said, “we have a tenor, two sopranos, two quartets and three pianists but only one piano.”

Jakub Jankowski

So, I’m writing a song cycle for two sopranos, piano four hands and string players. The performances take place in the barrel room. When I saw my first performance there a number of years ago at a previous festival I immediately noticed that there was a ladder at the end of the room leading up to a balcony, and I started imagining it would be really cool if...