Day 11 - Trio (for Paul)

Our original '30 Days in September' project in 2002 had one stand-out moment for me above all others. My old friend and collaborator, Paul J. Abbott, wrote a short electronic piece each day in the original version. On 11th September that year it was the first anniversary of the terrorist atrocities in New York. The emotion of that date was still raw across the world. The repercussions had not yet begun, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or elsewhere.

To write a piece on 11th September 2002 was a massively daunting task, and the piece that Paul wrote has stuck with me ever since then. It was built very simply in principle, using repeating tones at varying pulses, but the effect was ethereal and powerful.

The piece I have written today is inspired by Paul's 2002 work, but scored out for acoustic instruments rather than constructed electronically. Today's date still resonates but the context has changed, after so many years and so many hundreds of thousands of lives lost on the path that history has taken since then. But the concept of this music still seems fitting.