Orchestral

The Landscape Wakes

(2025) for orchestra
Duration: 17 minutes
3(3.pic).3.3(3.bcl).2.cbsn-4.3.3.1-timp.3perc(Crot.(bowed), Vib.(bowed), Tub. Bells, Bell Plates(F3,C4), Tuned Gong(F3), Medium Nipple Gong, Sus. Cymbal, Tam-tam, B.D.)-str

World Premiere: 6.2.26, Bradley Symphony Centre, Milwaukee: Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra/Ken-David Masur

Commissioned by Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and BBC Radio 3

Cello Concerto

(2025)
Duration: c. 25 minutes
picc.fl.2ob.2cl(II=bcl).bsn.cbsn. – 4.2.ttbn.btbn.1 – timp – perc(2): tam-t/nipple gong/crot (bowed)/BD/vib (bowed)/bongos/4 pitched bell plates/glock/marimba – harp – strings

World Premiere: 21.11.25, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles: Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), Los Angeles Philharmonic, Roberto González-Monjas (cond.)

Co-commissioned by Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hymn (after Byrd)

(2023) for string orchestra
Duration: 4 minutes

World Premiere: 23.3.23, St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, UK: 12 Ensemble/Eloisa-Fleur Thom

Hymn (after Byrd) is the fourth movement of String Quartet No.1 'Aloysius', arranged for string orchestra by the composer.

Programme Note

Hymn (after Byrd) is the penultimate movement of my String Quartet No. 1 ‘Aloysius’, arranged here for string orchestra. It is a reflection on William Byrd’s setting of the fifth century hymn ‘Christe, qui lux es et dies’. That ancient melody is a prayer for Light within the darkness of the night. The falling and rising contours within it became integral to my work on the quartet as a whole, as did the mental image of the setting and rising of the sun. © Edmund Finnis

Out of the Dawn's Mind

(2022) for soprano and string orchestra
Duration: 22 minutes
soprano and strings (min 5.4.3.3.1)

World Premiere: 16.06.22, Lakeside Arts, Nottingham, U.K.: Ruby Hughes/Manchester Collective

Programme Note

Out of the Dawn’s Mind

This song cycle for soprano and string orchestra sets five poems from Alice Oswald’s book Falling Awake.

I. A Rushed Account of the Dew
II. Sunday Ballad
III. A Short Story of Falling
IV. Shadow
V. Slowed-Down Blackbird

These poems deal with light, water, time and the experience of coming into contact with the world. The cycle opens with a dawn. Light searches a room ‘where two lay twined in bed’. There is falling rain ‘that rises to the light and falls again’. At dusk a shadow falls. Rooks fly upwards.

The cycle closes in the snow with a kind of erasure.

Acts of Waves

(2022) for orchestra
Duration: 15 minutes
2.picc.3.2.bcl.2.cbsn – 4.3.2.btrbn.1 – timp – perc(3): bdm/crot(+db bow)/3 bell plates/med. nipple gong/vib(+db bow)/Tam-t/tbells – strings

World Premiere: 3.3.22, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Domingo Hindoyan

Commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

The Air, Turning

(2016) For Orchestra
Duration: 9 minutes
3(III=picc).3.3(III=bcl).2.cbsn - 4.3.2.btrbn.1 - timp - perc(3): 5 bell plates/susp.cym/crot (+db bow)/Tam-t/vib(+db bow)/med. nipple gong - strings

World Premiere: 23.2.17, City Halls, Glasgow: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ilan Volkov

Commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

“Inspired by Scottish poet Robin Robertson’s Finding the Keys, this piece was an ethereally beautiful exploration of the transient nature of the wind and its interactions with the natural world.”
Herald Scotland
“very atmospheric…magical…powerful”
Seen and Heard International
“With sumptuous Russian music dominating this BBC SSO programme, the breeziness of Edmund Finnis’s The Air, Turning made for an ideal opener. Conductor Ilan Volkov gradually built up the full spectrum of string sound, from the bottom bass notes to eerie violin harmonics, which was then finely smudged with woodwind and brass colour.”
The Scotsman

Programme Note

The Air, Turning

The individual elements of this piece are predominantly very simple. Patterns of sound are made up of interwoven instrumental lines that variously rise or fall, remain fixed or form arcs. Blocks of sound colour approach and recede across a background haze of softly shimmering metallic percussion and ephemeral string harmonics. As these clear lines and planes are superimposed and overlapped they create variegated lattices of sound, accumulating and dispersing in waves, revolving and creating subtly shifting harmonies. Sounds are heard drifting into and over one another, gradually coalescing, circling and gathering into swirling currents.

The words of the title are lifted from a poem called “Finding the Keys” by the Scottish poet Robin Robertson. While composing this piece I was thinking about how we experience the medium of air: how vibrating air moves as sound across distance; how air is coloured by light, seen and seen through, breathed in and out; the sensation of it moving around us.

Between Rain

(2014) For string orchestra
Duration: 13 minutes
strings (min. 5.4.4.3.2)

World Premiere: 23.8.14, Roundhouse, London: London Contemporary Orchestra/Hugh Brunt

Between Rain was commissioned by the London Contemporary Orchestra