

Welcome to the livestream!
I'm so glad you can join us to launch the album WELCOME PARTY.
Pour yourself something something nice, and we'll toast together.
Why not browse the souvenirs while you're waiting...
PROGRAMME
Ser Սեր Love
A Poet (reading)
Inkwells
Swallows & Nightingales
Muted Lines
Walls & Ways
The Cave Painter
Cave Painting (reading)
Welcome Party
Lullaby Between Two
PERFORMERS
Trish Clowes
Ziazan
Ellie Fagg
Tom Norris
Malcolm Johnston
Laure Le Dantec
Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian
ABOUT WELCOME PARTY
notes by NMC Recordings
Welcome Party is a joyous story of creative revival in a time of isolation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The title track, featuring members of the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jon Hargreaves, is a loud, extroverted welcome to the album. Driving dance rhythms contrast with a deeply personal melody from the album’s closing track, Lullaby Between Two, sensitively brought to life by the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge (the composer’s alma mater) directed by Gareth Wilson. A touching tribute following a folk tradition of soothing songs, this lullaby was improvised by Horrocks-Hopayian whilst she waited for an ambulance to collect her Aunt, who tragically died after catching COVID-19.
Vocal works are the vehicle of some of Horrocks-Hopayian’s most personal music, such as Ser (the Armenian word for ‘love’). Originally commissioned by Serious for the London Jazz Festival in 2015 to mark the centenary of the Armenian genocide, this is a modal exploration of the two sides of the composer’s Anglo-Armenian heritage.
Multi-faceted in style as well as influence, Horrocks-Hopayian’s music breaks through genre barriers with ease. Muted Lines, initially written for saxophonist Trish Clowes’ album whilst Horrocks-Hopayian was in residence at 575, brings together the classical chamber ensemble, jazz group and an ancient Armenian text translated into English. Migration is another theme that runs through the album, and this work featuring Clowes, the composer’s vocals and Tim Giles on drumkit is a reflection on jazz in the context of travel and exile. Dancing Birds is a dance of migration in slow motion inspired Asalache’s by carved images of birds. Birds are also the protagonists of Swallows & Nightingales, text fragments by the Armenian author Gevork Dodokhian (swallow) and Sappho (nightingale).
Whether inspired by specific locations or by more abstract places such as her ancestral home, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian’s music “both belongs somewhere and speaks to our human need for belonging” (Caroline Potter).