Voices of Remembrance

Music inspired by 10 famous WW1 poems, commemorating and remembering the soldiers who lived, fought and died in the First World War.

Through her experience creating a new score for the IWM 1916 film The Battle of the Somme and her extensive research on World War One, Laura Rossi has created a richly evocative work that combines her stunningly emotive music with these important historical poems. The work can be performed with readings of the poems, moving us closer to the thoughts and feelings of the soldiers: their spirit, their strength, their hopes and fears.

The composer's researches led her to the diaries of her uncle Fred who was a stretcher bearer at The Battle of the Somme. She describes how "reading his diaries and remembering his voice made the connection to that time so much more vivid and had a profound effect on me. I wanted to go deeper into the feelings and emotions that the personal connection to the battle, the soldiers, and remembering my uncle brought to me. Music and poetry have a unique way of helping us to get closer to the thoughts and feelings of the soldiers. The voices, the words reach out to us from behind the grainy black and white images from so long ago."