In March 2020, I found myself at Snape Maltings to collaborate with soprano Juliet Fraser in the filming of an audio-video installation. The experimental project involved Juliet singing along to (tracing and transforming) recordings of music. On the day that the news of lockdown arrived, she’d been tracing the voices of two brothers who were singing ‘Saqartvelo Lamazo’, a traditional song about the beauty of Georgia. It’s an emotional song and an emotional recording—the brothers are singing together after not seeing each other for two years.

In tribute to that moment in time this piece is inspired by those experiments and is transformed again here for Lawrence’s remarkable voice-like viola playing. All is suspended now—time is dilated, and like many others, I’m like a sailboat at sea with no wind.

This is a piece about longing to reconnect with others, and about the experience of time holding still, endless hours without signposts.

Cassandra Miller