FACE ANTHEM

for choir, organ and violin (2024)

FACE ANTHEM is a simple, bright piece born out of fragments of Handel’s coronation anthem ‘Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened.’ Short cells of music repeat and rotate in different configurations, joyfully, mechanically, like a dance. I pictured the choir a bit like an AI, randomly generating sequences out of recycled Baroque parts, sometimes stalling, glitching, figuring itself out in real time, happy but unsure why.

Commissioned by London Handel Festival and first performed by National Youth Choir and members of Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Sofi Jeannin on 6 April 2024.