Composer's Notes:Dove Star-Folded was written at Christmas 2000 in memory of the recently deceased Sir Steven Runciman who had been a friend for more than thirty years. It was he who owned the small automaticorgan which had belonged to King George III with which the King in his madness had tried to teach caged finches to sing: this was central to the inspiration and conception of my Eight S…

The task: to write a piece that could involve children as players singers and composers alongside a professional symphony or chamber orchestra. The solution: a peace-cry for the biosphere in which the collaborative nature of theenterprise is a metaphor for a wished-for human enlightenment to the ways of the natural world. Davies provides five musical elements and five ways of development and us…

An eight minute ensemble composition for Violin Viola and Cello premiered in january 2001 by Marcia Crayford at the St.Columbus Church in London. The piece is based on a Greek byzantine hymn and features a short seriesof transformations. The opening phrase has a tangential flow of reflective thought and the end is calm and wrapt reflecting the titles inwardness.

Chamber opera in a prologue and one act. A ghost story telling of the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse keepers in the Hebrides. This is a mystery story in the form of a chamber opera. The prologue is set as acourt of enquiry into the unexplained disappearance of the three keepers from a lighthouse. Questions are posed by a solo horn which may sound from among the audience and three …

This motet for unaccompanied SATB choir was commissioned for the 500th anniversary of King's College Cambridge. This is a setting in Greek of an Orthodox prayer to Christ as Son and Word God and Man risen and saving. The prayeris led by a solo tenor and sung mostly by the men with the upper voices entering only for an appeal to Wisdom (sofia) and the final alleluia.It was first performed in 19…