Emily Hall: The Open Fund for Music Creators
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‘Rest’ is a new cycle of mourning songs, written by Emily Hall and Toby Litt, for the a capella folk trio, Lady Maisery. Litt and Hall are adding to their other two successful song cycles, ‘Love Songs’ (Faster than Sound commission)and ‘Life Cycle’(Opera North Commission), to create ‘Rest’, a secular small-scale requiem. They found there are few secular mourning songs and are motivated by the idea of creating something specifically for this purpose, whether as a performance piece or as a very private piece that people choose to sing at a personal memorial event. Litt and Hall have teamed up with Lady Maisery to premier and profile the new work.
Emily Hall-Emily Hall is a composer, known for her songs, writing in a style which is classical meets folk meets completely her own style. Her music has been widely performed at festivals including Latitude, Aldeburgh, Faster than Sound, Ether and Spitalfields and by groups like the London Sinfonietta, Streetwise Opera, London Symphony Orchestra and the Brodsky Quartet. She has been collaborating with author Toby Litt on songs since 2006. She writes for and collaborates a lot with cellist Oliver Coates and with singer Mara Carlyle and pianist John Reid. Other singers she has written for include Robert Murray, Olivia Chaney and Alice Grant. Her website is www.emilyhall.co.uk
Toby Litt-Toby Litt is a Granta Best of Young British Novelist and a regular on Radio 3’s The Verb. He has published two collections of stories and nine novels including Corpsing, Exhibitionism, I play the drums in a band called okay and King Death. His story ‘John & John’ won the Manchester Fiction Prize. He teaches creative writing at Birkbeck College. His website is at www.tobylitt.com.
Lady Maisery- This year, Lady maisery were nominated at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in the Best Newcomer category, also nominated for Best Debut at The Spiral Awards. In December, they were featured as an ‘Album of the Week’ in The Independent. Have played live on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour to approximately 2.5 million listeners, and have been featured on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, BBC Radio 2’s Mike Harding Show and BBC Radio 5 Live. Their website is www.ladymaisery.com