Yesterday evening I went to the rehearsal of my new piece, The House That I Built. The song was commissioned by the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht (Utrecht Early Music Festival), for the rather unusual scoring of positive organ, theorbo, bass gamba and two sopranos. The sopranos are Eugénie Warnier (artist-in-residence in the Utrecht festival) and Elodie Fonnard: two amazing singers, blending together most wonderfully in my music. The ensemble is the Strassbourg based Le Parlement de Musique, led by organist Martin Gester.

Period instruments are not your usual suspects for contemporary music, plus my instrumental writing is a bit speedy and rhythmically relentless – it’s easy to spin out or miss a side street on the fast lane. But Gester and Le Parlement were focused and made it sound incredibly exciting and tight. Tonight will see the first performance of the song, together with the Leçons de ténèbres bij François Couperin.

The lyrics I used are not biblical, nor is the text about the destruction of Jerusalem (or any other city). I found this three-line-song in Henry Thoreau’s Walden, and it seemed to fit perfectly to the occasion:

This is the house that I built,
This is the man that lives in the house that I built,
These are the folks that worry the man that lives in the house that I built.

I’m excited about tonight’s premiere. If you happen to be around, please don’t hesitate to drop by. Le Parlement also performs the Couperin Leçons with an expressive power never heard before.