Three Last Letters (2020/2012): A play for musicians: 3 voices, 3 instruments, 3 laptops and diffused soundscape

Three Last Letters is a music composition that imagines the last moments in the minds of Scott, Wilson and Bowers before they die in a tent, alone on an Antarctic Ice Shelf in 1912. It was created using facts and suppositions surrounding these last moments and includes a library of found materials created from texts from the final entry’s in Scott’s diary, the final letters home from Scott, Bowers and Wilson, Antarctic field recordings from my British Antarctic Survey composer residency in 2003-4, music materials (specifically We love the place, O God, and Sea Slumber Song by Elgar) and other sounds and music that take the minds of the audience to this lonely place. Together, the mix of the live ensemble with the disembodied voice of Scott, the ghost string sextet, and treated soundscape re-create the immensity of white sonic space of Antarctica, and a claustrophobic sense of being in that tent. Demo https://vimeo.com/55203930