David Lancaster’s work ‘Angelus’ performed by Duncan Honeybourne and Francesca Hurst

Here at UYMP, we were very pleased to hear that David Lancaster’s work for solo piano, Angelus, has been performed both within Duncan Honeybourne’s Contemporary Piano Soundbites Project and by pianist Francesca Hurst within her ‘Daily Dose of Piano’.

Angelus was commissioned by Duncan Honeybourne for his Contemporary Piano Soundbites series of 2020 which is fundraising to support Help Musicians UK.The title was suggested by a line from Bret Harte’s poem ‘The Angelus’: Bells of the past, whose long-forgotten music still fills the wide expanse...

Lancaster writes, 'for me, one of the effects of the coronavirus lockdown is a heightened awareness of the passing of time; sometimes each day can seem like an eternity, and the days before the lockdown – including the concerts I attended - now a very distant memory, although in reality they are still relatively recent. In Angelus I have attempted to create a sense of time passing slowly, within a miniature form.'

Hurst’s performance can be viewed on her youtube channel, and Angelus will of course be featured on Honeybourne’s CD of the commissioned Contemporary Piano Soundbites series, to be recorded after the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown period, which we are sure will be eagerly anticipated.