Songs of Hope

Asman’s New Music score ‘Saint Peter’s Hope (John 21)’ comes from a set of two choral works, Songs of Hope, the other with poetry by Emily Dickinson. Scored for unaccompanied double choir, it opens with a growing collage of shifting harmonies, overlapping phrases and expressive use of dissonance. After a flowering of soaring and undulating lines, an increasingly homophonic texture with short, lapping tone clusters underpinned by a sustained bass line (reminiscent of Eric Whitaker, but with a darker colour) leads the work to its enigmatic close. The newly written text is by former diplomat and politician turned academic, Rory Stewart. 

—Matthew Power, Choir & Organ Magazine