New JAM commission - 'No Answer' by Timothy Jackson
The John Armitage Memorial has commissioned Timothy Jackson to write a song cycle for the project's 2002 concerts. The work is set to words drawn from the works of imprisoned or exiled writers. The event is organised in conjunction with the English centre of PEN, The International Association of Writers. PEN acts as a powerful voice in opposition to political censorship, campaigning for writers harassed, imprisoned, sometimes murdered for the expression of their views.
'No Answer' is a setting of a group of five poems by writers in prison during the Twentieth Century, many of whom died in confinement. Their work, a bleak record of the experience of incarceration, is dark and harrowing, but is also often openly life-affirming.
'No Answer' is scored to take advantage of the full forces available to the project - Choir including solo voices, Organ and Brass Quintet.
The world premier of this work will take place in March 2002 at St. Bride's Church, Fleet Street.