Programme Notes

Sophie Pope - to a crow

There are many crows, they are black and go “argh! argh”. They hop around like gangsters and often look pretty bedraggled, with missing feathers and scrappy wings. I think they’re great. They are clever, mysterious, confident, sociable and do a lot more than just “argh! argh!”. They can learn words, much like a parrot, and are well known for their use of tools in order to get at food. I wanted to use the untypical sounds of the crow and the flute; historically composers have used the sweet sounding birdsong and the sweet sounding melodies on the flute. I thought it was about time some other birds were given a chance at music. This piece combines the sounds of the flute with those of the crows in order to portray the liveliness, hidden beauty and multifaceted nature of the crows.



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