Commissioned as part of the ORA Singers' Graduate Composer Showcase 2024, and supported by The Linbury Trust, The Colwinston Charitable Trust, and The Garrick Charitable Trust. It is now part of the ORA Singers' 100 Commissions Catalogue, and the piece is a reflection on Vicente Lusitano's 'Sancta mater'.

When reading the text translation of the 'Sancta mater', I was struck by the intimacy of the grief that was voiced, and the need to share in it from the speaker's perspective. The music also has a resigned quality in parts, as well as moments of both quiet peace and pleading questions. The atmosphere of a chapel is something that has recently fascinated me, and I felt there was a parallel between the space that Lusitano's music creates, and the privacy of a chapel, especially where a chapel is not part of a larger church structure, but in a workplace or a hospital, for example. Music has the ever-miraculous ability to transform a space, especially where we wouldn't normally find it, and a chapel does something similar; it sets aside a space for spirituality. The voice of my text is an agnostic visitor to a chapel, who is uncertain of this space, and whether they can entrust their mind to it. It feels possible that they could separate and personify their emotions to leave them in this space and carry on with their daily life. If they thought that they would be looked after, and potentially improved on return, what does that say about their beliefs?

"What a talent!" Suzi Digby OBE