Slate, Sea and Sky | Jim Hayes (cornet), Scottish Co-op Funeralcare Band, Michael Fowles (conductor) | 2016

Recorded by World of Sound at St Paul's High School, Glasgow, 13 February 2016. Track 4 of the album Angels will Fall.

Slate, Sea and Sky features a musical landscape and journey in three integrated and continuous sections, led by the cornet soloist alongside ensembles broadly representing the title’s elements: ‘slate’ (flugelhorn, tenor horns and trombones); ‘sea’ (baritones, euphoniums and basses) and ‘sky’ (cornets). These alternate throughout with the full band, travelling towards and through a storm, and emerging into bright skies at the end.

The title is inspired by Norman Bissell’s evocative poem of the same name, found in a book of poetry given to me by a close friend, to whom the work is dedicated.

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Slate, Sea and Sky, A Journey from Glasgow to the Isle of Luing, Norman Bissell, published by Luath Press.

An island on the rim of the world
in that space between slate, sea and sky
where air and ocean currents
are plays of wild energy
and the light changes everything.

Norman Bissell

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