‘I have the heart of a naturalist, the head of a would-be scientist, and the bones of someone wearied by the destruction us humans wield against nature.’
—Dara McAnulty, Diary of a Young Naturalist
Commissioned by CLS to celebrate our 50th anniversary season, Scenes from the Wild is a song cycle for tenor and chamber orchestra, based on the book Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty and composed by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, with libretto by Amanda Holden. The piece premiered to critical acclaim on 25 November 2021 at Southwark Cathedral.
In 2022, Cheryl Frances-Hoad won the Ivor Novello Composers Award in the Large Ensemble Category for the piece.
Composer: Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Libretto: Amanda Holden
Movement director: Sarah Dowling
Conductor: Geoffrey Patterson
Reflective of our commitment to combining music and words, and following the legacy of CLS’s founder Richard Hickox, Scenes from the Wild weaves Amanda Holden’s beautiful setting of Dara McAnulty’s prose with a soaring score from Cheryl Frances-Hoad. A tenor is the voice of McAnulty, with musicians adding the colour of the world around him and each instrument representing different birds through the 27 songs.
★★★★
‘captivating work, marrying insightful words to gently powerful music’
★★★★
‘…a terrific achievement. The sheer luxuriance of Frances-Hoad’s imagination is almost overwhelming’