Naturally inspired: South Downs Songbook composition resources

For thousands of people the South Downs is an environment for recreation, and for enjoying the stunning scenery. But for hundreds of years its distinctive and unique environment has inspired artists including poets, landscape painters, writers, and composers.

The Brighton based Orchestra of Sound and Light (OSL) decided to celebrate this history by commissioning a songbook of brand-new pieces about the South Downs from composers and students in schools and colleges. Four professional composers wrote stylistically very different songs for a mixed ensemble that toured venues and schools across the region (singer, flute, clarinet, electric guitar, keyboard and cello). Each composer's text gives a very different perspective on landscape and history. Shirley J. Thompson OBE set A Hymn to the Evening by Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784), the African-American author. Rowland Sutherland set a poem by Charlotte Turner Smith (1749–1806). Ed Hughes adapted words by an early contributor to the Mass Observation Archive (Marion Robinson, 1937) who lived near Felpham and was inspired by William Blake and the skies over the South Downs. Evelyn Ficarra set a poem by contemporary Brighton poet, Valerie Whittington, inspired by the song of larks over the Downs.