BBC commmission for the 2019 BBC Proms Season. Performed at Cadogan Hall on 22nd July 2019 by VOCES8. About Earthward My music is often spacious, with an emphasis on misty harmonies and weaving melodic lines. My conceptual inspirations are often strongly rooted in contemporary crises, particularly climate change but also social disasters I see as closely related to it such as the refugee crisis and mental health. Literature is also a key source of inspiration for me and I have recently begun to use my own poetry as an extended performance direction in my scores as well as setting it as text. A strong sense of spirituality runs through much of both my musical and poetic work; Earthward is no exception. Inspired by the sacred themes of the rest of the programme, I wished to write my own piece of ‘sacred’ vocal music. As a Buddhist however, it felt most authentic to place the Earth at the centre of the work as the object of devotion. Of course, an intellectual approach is crucial to tackling ecological catastrophes; but in a time in which our intimate connection to the universe, our sense that, ‘what we do to nature, we do to ourselves’, is often stifled beneath cold statistics and dire predictions, it is also essential that we express our own love of and grief for the Earth. I hope this piece, with its returning, almost liturgical unisons which blossom into dense chords on important words and phrases in my text, and its main instruction to the ensemble to convey a ‘reverential’ feel, communicates my own closeness to nature and the strong sense of sacredness I find there.