After such a turbulent year our Music Director Claire M Singer shares a new piece to wish you a happy & healthy 2021 from us all at Union Chapel. Forrig will be out on Claire's new album due to be released later in 2021 on Touch.
Written and performed by Claire M Singer at Union Chapel
Filmed and edited by Jay Richardson
Published by Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd
Mastered by Denis Blackham
Recorded on the 12th December 2020 on our organ built by Father Henry Willis 1877
Design by Jon Wozencroft
Claire M Singer is a composer, producer and performer of acoustic and electronic music, film and installations. Known for her experimental approach to the organ her work draws inspiration from the dramatic landscape of her native Scotland, exploring rich harmonic textures and complex overtones that create ever-shifting melodic and rhythmic patterns disappearing almost as soon as they emerge. Her three critically acclaimed releases on Touch feature Singer playing both organ and cello (‘..each piece is timeless and genuinely magical’ – The Quietus). Performances include Tate Modern London; Queen Elizabeth Hall London; Muziekgebouw Aan' t ij; Westerkerk Amsterdam opening for Low and Barbican London opening for Stars of the Lid. The Guardian wrote ‘Claire M Singer really knows how to wring the best out of this magnificent instrument, creating moments of sustained rapture’
Awards include the Oram Award in 2017 for her innovation in sound and music and the Festival Castell de Peralada Award for best film score in 2019 (Tell It To The Bees). In 2020 her work Gleann Ciùin was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award, which was commissioned by the London Contemporary Orchestra. Recent projects include a collaboration with Chris Watson for organ, field recordings, orchestra and choir premiering at Organ Reframed at Union Chapel in 2021.
Singer has been Music Director of the organ at Union Chapel since 2012. She launched our organ programme in education in performance soon after her arrival and in 2016 she founded the only festival of its kind in the UK, Organ Reframed, which focuses on commissioning and presenting innovative new experimental music, which re-imagines the organ for both artist and audience. Past commissions include Éliane Radigue, Low, Hildur Guðnadóttir and Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie.