Natalie Clein and Aurora Orchestra premiere
Natalie Clein and Aurora Orchestra under Duncan Ward gave the premiere of ‘The Certainty of Tides’ as part of Kings Place’s Venus Unwrapped festival, 14th December.
The title is taken from Maya Angelou’s empowering poem, Still I Rise, in which the strength and constancy of woman is likened to the certainty of tides:
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
With clarity, the cello sings powerfully through the piece, her persistent voice a singular source of energy for the ensemble. In constant motion and usually ascending, the piece sparkles and radiates. In one movement the solo voice, like a pathfinder, leads the ensemble through four inter-connected sections. In blazing a trail, she is at times alone but never lonely.
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Gallery of Slovenia in Ljubljana, the composer took the sculpture by Drago Trsar entitled, Amidst the Powerful and the Powerless, as her inspiration for the piece. In connection with this, the ground-breaking history project “The First 100 Years” celebrates pioneers in the legal profession over this period, since the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, which paved the way for women to become lawyers for the first time. The sculpture is a visual representation of the principal themes inherent in the 100 years project and the music, in turn, embodies both.