In preparing Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees, I visited and recorded several notable historical organs in the UK and Europe: the Van Straten Organ, a reconstruction of a late-Medieval Dutch organ (dating from 1479) at Het Orgelpark, Amsterdam; period instruments at St Cecilia’s Hall, University of Edinburgh (a 1765 Thomas Parker Enharmonic Organ and a Chamber Organ from c.1680); and the Wingfield Organ, a reconstructed English Tudor organ by the makers Goetz and Gwynn.

These sampled organs are performed simultaneously, using three keyboards: two MIDI keyboards and the ROLI Seaboard Rise 2, a ‘4D’ instrument that allows the player to sculpt and transform their sound in live performance. The work is in three parts: ‘Earth’, a densely layered opening; ‘Air’, a sensuous, microtonal middle section; and ‘Ocean’, in which layered organs pulse and undulate.

Engaging with modes of ritualised and communal listening, Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees is performed on multiple loudspeakers placed around the space, so that sound surrounds and subsumes the audience.