Natural World
Date: Friday 21st April
Time: 1.00pm
Venue: Kevin Barry Recital Room, National Concert Hall
Tickets €14

​Juliet Fraser, soprano
Mark Knoop, piano

Laurence Crane Natural World (2021)

Take an hour out of your busy day at this lunchtime concert with internationally renowned duo Juliet Fraser (soprano) and Mark Knoop (piano). Their performance of Laurence Crane’s Natural World (2021) combines acoustic sound with sampled electronics and field recordings, conjuring a gentle and captivating celebration of nature.

Natural World was commissioned and composed in response to the work of American marine biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson, and explores the poetic nature of factual or list-based texts—with words drawn together from catalogues of birds and marine life. The piece received its first performances at Musica Sacra Maastricht and Oxford Lieder, and won the ‘Small Chamber’ Ivor Novello Award 2022, with the jury describing it as ‘a brave and individual work… arresting and immersive’.

Natural World was commissioned by Juliet and Mark with Oxford Lieder and Musica Sacra Maastricht, and with the generous support of Arts Council England's National Lottery Project Grants, PRS Foundation's The Open Fund for Music Creators and the Vaughan Williams Foundation.