Shielding Songs, an album of choral works by Jessica Curry, is out now from Bandcamp. Performed by Curry’s longstanding collaborators London Voices and conducted by Ben Parry, the record comprises world premieres as well as new arrangements for voices of her celebrated music for videogames, many of which are available to perform through Faber Music; the album is also available as a special limited edition vinyl.
The album explores themes of vulnerability, tenderness, tolerance, forgiveness, loss and love. It is Curry’s first album in five years and “probably the mot personal music I’ve ever made”; the work’s title reflects Curry’s difficult experiences during the pandemic as an immunocompromised person and reflects her journey out of it; she discusses the creation of the record in The Guardian here.
“What began as a reaction to the grief and shock of feeling cast aside by society has turned into a clarion call for togetherness and the need to offer our help, our love and our compassion to the vulnerable”, Curry writes. “Fundamentally, the album is about the responsibility we all have to shield one another.”
Highlights from the record include settings of Home by Warsan Shire (the British poet championed by Beyoncé) and Kiss the Bairns, from The Durham Hymns, Curry’s collaboration with the former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Close Mine Eyes, for saxophone and SATB voices, is dedicated to Curry’s late aunt Sue, who died during the pandemic, and is a musical response to Orlando Gibbons’ The Silver Swan.
Shielding Songs also includes tracks from Curry’s 2011 anti-war work Perpetual Light: Requiem for an Unscorched Earth, recorded for the very first time, interleaving the texts of the traditional Mass for the Dead with the words of Robert Oppenheimer. The album also features choral versions of So Let us Melt and The Light We Cast from her celebrated videogame score Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, whose orchestral version has previously appeared at the BBC Proms and Adelaide Festival.