Indoor Gossip, Cairo, 1873:  After John Frederick Lewis

Performance for two singers and chamber ensemble. 5 minutes, 2002.

Based on a Victorian painting in the Whitworth Art Gallery collection of two women gossiping in an Egyptian harem. Transcribed playground gossip from Ducie High School pupils, a school in Moss Side, Manchester, was set to music which was performed in the gallery by two sopranos and a chamber quartet of Manchester Camerata musicians. In a number of duet works I made during this period I was interested in dialogue, it's necessity and it's deceptions. The children’s scurrilous source material, married with the adult's musical performance, create collisions between the drawing room and the harem; cruelty and innocence; playground chattering and cultured interaction. Commissioned by Whitworth Art Gallery with Manchester Camerata. Score is in another collection but can be sourced if requested.